Where Butterflies Never Die
by Kaede Ravensdale
Summary: Eremika Au. 10 years ago she though she lost everything to the hands of the Chimera and the blight they spread. Then Eren, no-longer-human but very much alive, falls back into her life and changes everything. What's the truth and what is a lie? And will love, or duty, prove more important in her life? M for violence and smut.
1. Mariposa

Chapter One - Mariposa

The sun was setting fire to the sky as it sank below the horizon line of Wall Sina, etching the grey stone black as it painted the heavens in hues of orange, yellow and red rapidly darkening as they faded upwards into a star-studded tapestry of deepest blue. It was the dead of December and Christmas was only days away but Mikasa Ackerman-humanity's strongest soldier-was anything but brimming with good cheer. The last light of the dying day set her black-opal eyes aflame with shades of gold, the cold wind caressing her ivory skin blowing through her short raven feather hair and pulling the knotted, stained and badly fraying fringe of her red scarf out behind her. Below the castle balcony on which she stood sentry the streets of Sina were bustling with people running to-and-fro, laughing, singing carols and shopping for gifts for their families. The street lamps were hung with wreaths and garlands and the shops were strung with multicolored lights, but far from warming her soul the sight of it just made her feel cold. It had been 16 Christmases since the night when she had lost her parents. 10 Christmases since she had lost everything. It had been a long time since anything-be it the warmth of a holiday hearth or a battalion of butchered soldiers on the open field of war-had manages to draw any sort of emotion out of her at all. She was nonchalant, unflappable and numb; some had gone so far as to call her apathic, even sociopathic, but the stark truth of the matter was that she just couldn't bring himself to feel anymore. She had had everything she loved stripped from her too many times already; if it happened again, it wouldn't be something that even she could survive. And with the world the way it was the only way to avoid the loss of who and what you cared for was not to make attachments in the first place. The sole item still existing in the world that carried any real meaning to her at all was the scarf around her neck-the hand woven cotton worn thin and near to threadbare by almost two decades of near constant wear and the heart-blood red color faded out near to pink by the sun-and even that, much like her usually iron clad control, was rapidly coming apart. And once it finally fell away to disconnected threads, her final physical tie to him would be severed. Nothing would be left of him but for the memories that she battled with herself everyday not to dwell on. And once that happened, Mikasa knew that she would truly go insane. She could feel her eyes beginning to burn; unwilling to break and shed the tears she'd been holding on to since the day that he was ripped from her arms, she squeezed her eyes shut and breathed shaky breaths through her nose until she succeeded in warding off tears and calmed down.

"Mikasa," the ravenette turned her head just slightly to look over her shoulder at him as he stood in the doorway of the balcony. "You should come inside."

"It isn't that cold out tonight, Armin. I'll be fine." She leaned her weight against the ornately carved stone banister with a heavy sigh, the unshed teardrops glistening like constellations in her long dark lashes. Only in front of him was she unafraid the slightest sliver of her true emotions; guarded, yes, but unafraid. After all, he had been Eren's best friend. The final member of their inseperable trio, until that night when they were violently parted forever. All because of those damnable Chimera.

"That's not why I'm here." She knew full well his reason for being there; the suit that he wore was explination enough. "The ball starts in 20 minutes and your presence- as is all of ours-is expected. You're not even in your dress yet."

"Right." If only there could be one year, _one_ year, when she could somehow get out of making an appearance at the cursed Yuletide ball! "The time…got away from me. I'll be down in time, don't worry. Go on ahead." He remained reluctantly in the doorway for a moment, the nodded and left her room on the barrack's floor of the castle. Sighing sadly, Mikasa turned back to face the sun that had no all but disappeared. _Eren, I'm sorry._ She steeled herself, then pushed the rare tender thoughts of her brother into the box at the back of her mind where she'd filed them away 10 years before, slammed the lid shut and locked it up tight. She changed quickly out of her uniform and into her dress before applying the baubles and enhancements expected of her for an appearance on so formal-and useless-an occasion. Sitting down for a moment in front of her mirrored wardrobe, she stared solemnly up at her reflection; cat-eye eyeliner ad red lacquer lipstick and a pair of diamond studs. The dagger hidden expertly just inside the slit up one side of the sequined silk dress that sparkled and shifted-as if undecided-between hues of blue and green like the feathers of a peacock. Like his eyes. She stood up immediately, heeled shoes clicking sharply on the stone tiled floor as she made for her door. Again, the pretense began. Again, came the act. The imitation of emotion, of joy, for the sake of the King and the Nobles that she protected. For the cause, the _function_, that she served. Black and white. Cut and dried. Colorless and cold. A world devoid of the warmth of his smile could never hope to be anything different.

She could hear the music tinkling out of the ballroom doors standing slightly ajar even as she stepped out into the hallway outside of her room; a soft, pleasant and upbeat melody of piano and orchestral strings. Mikasa descended the curving stone staircase. Jean, waiting in a suit at the bottom of the stairs, turned towards her and grinned. She took his hand and allowed the smug ash-blonde to pull her closer. Jean this year. Marco the year before. Reiner before that. Armin multiple times when none of the others could work up the nerve to ask her as their date. It never mattered who it was to her. She knew that, despite her cold attitude and tendancy to remain closed off from the world, she was desirable to almost all of the men she met on an every day basis for her beauty and her strength, but all they ever were in her eyes were dance partners.

"You look stunning tonight, Mikasa." He purred, pulling a jewelry box from one of his pockets and presenting her with a delicate silver bracelet.

"Thank you, Jean." For the compliment and the gift. She allowed him to slip the bracelet over her right wrist. "It's beautiful."

"As are you, so it's befitting." A rather cheesy sentiment, and yet he thought it to be so smooth; she had the distinct feeling that it was to be a long and rather arduous night of his lame and constant flirting, but she didn't make light of her thoughts. As she always did, Mikasa kept quiet on her true feelings in favor of acting out what was expected and desired of her. Jean grinned again and offered his arm. "Shall we?" Taking his arm Mikasa allowed him to lead her through the doors. Inside the music grew even louder, a live band playing for the entertainment of the guests wheeling through the room beneath the sparkling light of an enormous chandelier dripping with enormous faceted crystals. The floors were tiled in shinning golden beige a red carpet rolled out through the center of the room. The walls were white washed, the crown molding leafed in gold. Off to one side stood two enormous tables burdened down and creaking with the weight of countless plates and platters of food and pitchers of wine. A line of arching gothic style windows were set into the other wall. "Care for a dance?"

She'd been doing so well pushing away the memories that burned in her old wounds like caustic acid each time that they stubbornly came crawling back, until that moment. That one phrase. Unintentionally, unknowingly, he'd broken her and allowed the past to come rushing back up through the cracks that had recently begun to open up in her armor.

_The sun had set a few hours ago, and now the full moon and countless stars sparkled above their heads. It was getting late, but the night was still warm with the heat of summer. Crickets chirped in the undergrowth. Countless people were still out despite the late hour that was only growing later. The three of them had been delighting in raising Cain all day at Shiganshina's annual summer festival, but Armin had left to go home an hour before and now it was just the two of them sitting on a grassy hillside listening to the band that was continuing to play for the entertainment of the gathered crowd that was only getting drunker by the minute. Suddenly, Mikasa jumped up and tugged at his hand, pulling a startled Eren to his feet along with her._

_ "Mikasa, what-?"_

_ "Care for a dance, Eren?"_

_ The eleven-year-old boy blinked at her in surprise for a moment, his sea green eyes somewhat unfocused. "A dance?"_

_ "Come on, please!" she tugged gently on his hand again, their finger still intertwined. "It'll be fun."_

_ He shrugged his shoulders, still small in his boyhood but beginning to broaden. "Sure, why not." Reaching out, he twined his warm arms around her waist and pulled her close to him. With her in his arms he began to sway slowly back and forth in at a pace that didn't match the tempo of the music at all._

_ "What are you doing, Eren?"_

_ "Dancing."_

_ "This isn't dancing, you big doofus!" She told him sternly, but was unable to surpress a giggle at the way his eyebrows knitted together in response. "We need to match the music. To do it like the way the people do in Armin's books."_

_ "So…like this?" he slid his hands to her waist, lifted her up, attempted to twirl her through the air and lost his footing on the hillside. "Shit!" The next thing either of them knew they were tumbling head over heels back down the hill to land with Eren on his back and Mikasa on his chest. "O-Ow!"_

_ "Are you alright?"_

_ He nodded, opening his eyes to reveal that they were watering slightly. "I'm fine, though I have a feeling your landing was a lot softer than mine."_

_ "Well, you're not exactly squishy but you're certainly softer than the ground." Eren laughed at this, the warm smile she could never get enough of once again gracing his perfect features. "We'll always be together, won't we Eren?"_

_ He nodded without a moment's hesitation in response. "Yeah. Always."_

"I-I'm sorry. I can't!"

"Mikasa, wait!" She heard him call out to her but didn't stop, pushing her way through the crowd with an intensity that bordered desperation in a quest to get out of the ballroom. Out of the castle. She fled the building and took off into the city, down the street that-at the now late hour-was deserted. She couldn't let the tears fall, because she knew that if she started crying for him now she would never stop. So she ran. Ran until the burning of her eyes was replaced with the burning of her muscles and she was gasping from exertion rather than the want-the need-to cry. Finally reaching a dark secluded alleyway, she slithered into the shadows to hide and leaned her forehead against the ice-cold slimy alley wall. She almost wished that a breach in the wall, or a blight outbreak or a terrorist attack of some shape or form would take place; anything to occupy her mind with thoughts of other things until Eren's ghost saw fit to once more leave her lie. At that very moment, a ceramic roof tile fell from above and shattered at her feet; she froze.

"Watch it Shorty! I didn't take the time and effort to disable all of those ridiculous alarms just so you could give us away by falling into some poor sap's living room!" An excitable voice chirped quite loudly. It was answered by a masculine-sounding and rather inhuman throaty growl.

"Do you have any idea, Shitty Glasses, how difficult it is to walk on a roof with a 45 degree slant with _paws_!?" Paws? What the hell were these two lunatics doing out on a night as cold as this one was at such a late hour, not to mention they were traveling by roof. And what was this she'd heard about disabled alarms? Senses screaming that something was definitely amiss, Mikasa pulled off her heels, fitted the straps between her teeth and began to shimmy up a metal rain shoot. "It's not as if anyone else is out here anyway; the civilians are all curled up by the fire and the soldiers and nobles are all cooped up in that stupid party! Besides, if we are caught it will have less to do with falling roof tiles and everything to do with your annoying catterwall of a voice!" Grabbing the over hanging edge of the roof and pulling herself up onto it, Mikasa rolled silently up onto her feet-feeling the rough, sharp and uneven shingled beneath her bare toes-and straightened up. Before her were two people; the first was a tall woman with somewhat crazed eyes magnified behind enormous glasses and long brown hair done up into a messy tangled bun around what looked like chopsticks. The second was a man with short black hair worn in a double cut and pale skin; is ears were sharply pointed, his fingers tipped in claws, and a black wolf's tail curled outwards from the base of his spine. His feet were, indeed, paws like those of a canine, the claws even now trying to find lasting purchase on the uneven slanting surface of the room. Both wore similar outfits; what looked very close to her own uniform accompanied by a long forest green cloak cinched around their shoulders and 3DM gear hanging from their belts.

_A Chimera!_ She thought in horror, thoughts immediately flashing to the feral monsters-mindless, blood thirsty and sub human-that had caused so much damage and spread the sickness that had left her all alone. But what she was looking at didn't fit with anything she knew of them, be it what she'd learned in the academy or what she'd experienced first hand on the battle field. None of them had the sentience to wear so much as a shingle shred of clothing, let alone don a full uniform or operate gear. The ability to speak was unheard of. And that a human would be working with one made her physically sick.

"Levi!" The woman yelped, having finally caught sight of her. As the man whirled around with a snarl, Mikasa whipped out her dagger and slid into a combat stance. "What was it you were saying about all of the soldiers being at that party?"

"She obviously came from there; look what she'd wearing." The Chimera drawled, his blue-grey eyes casually combing up and down her form in a way that made her shudder. "A tight dress; curve fitting, sexy and far from what anyone possessed of a single iota of sense would consider combat gear. She's barefoot; was likely wearing heels, but took them off to climb up here. Her make up is smudged like she'd been trying not to cry. She's here because of a coincidence and nothing more; all the same we can't allow her to go running off and howl our presence to the dales."

"Erwin won't be pleased if we engage and kill someone."

"There are ways to temporarily silence her that don't involve death and mutilation Hanji." The man's voice remained in its monotone and his face remained impassive, but a shade of annoyance was beginning to become evident.

"We need to leave; we can't risk loosing this sample!"

"We have no choice but to engage her, Zoe!" He snapped back. "Look at her; that look in her eyes; that hatred. She isn't about to let us leave without a fight. We need to take care of this distraction before the situation can escalate any further."

"Levi-!"

"If you're so damn concerned with that sample, then by all means go on ahead. You ought to have known me long enough by now to be well aware that I can more than easily handle one brat on my own."

For a moment the woman looked conflicted, then she nodded with a sigh. "Catch up with me outside of Rose." Her gear fired off with the hiss of compressed gas and she swung off into the night, leaving Mikasa alone with Levi.

"Got a problem with Chimeras, have we brat?"

She sneered at him, gripping her knife tighter. "Just that every single one of you are abberations that go against the laws of nature! Other than that, and your taste for Human flesh, I have no conflict with your kind."

His upper lip curled back over a mouthful of razor sharp teeth. "You've certainly got a pair of balls on you."

"And I'll be happy to relieve you of yours."

"How very crass; aren't pretty woman supposed to be cultured and polite?" his compliment, if that was what it was, made her skin crawl. "Well then, shall we get this over with? I'm sure both of us have better places to be than freezing our tales off on some poor bastard's roof."

"You're not going anywhere!" She leapt at him and slashed with the knife, but he dodged out of the way with a fluid grace like water. The weight of his gear, however, coupled with the slope of the roof to drag him down in a free fall for a few moments. He managed to recover surprisingly quickly but looked anything but pleased.

"I'm done with this fucking roof!" Releasing his hold on the gutter without a second's hesitation, again barely avoiding her strike when she pounced after him. Mikasa followed, giving little thought to the 20 foot drop even as she landed wrong and felt her ankle twist painfully. She recovered herself a moment away from falling and reeled backwards to avoid him as his claws went flying passed her face. A thin slash opened against her cheek, a scarlet trail beginning to thread its way down along her jaw line.

"Mmm, first blood is mine. He slashed at her again, but this time she managed to step around the strike and avoid it completely. "Considering what you're wearing and the fact that your ankle is twisted you're fighting quite well."

"Killing your kind is my specialty." He leapt back with a howl when she caught him in the eye. "My life's work, ever since your disease stole _everything_ from me!"

"Your specialty? You're life's work?" he repeated with a scornful scoff. "Pity you're way out of your league, Human. While you're drive is admirable, to say the very least I'm through with going easy!" The increase in his speed when the gloves came off was shocking; Mikasa barely managed to throw herself out of the way only to have her attacker wield his gear with expert precision to come at her from above with devastating force. The last thing she heard before unconsciousness was the sickening sound of her skull cracking against the cobbled street. With her threat taken care of, Levi sank into a crouch beside her to better observe his defeated opponent. Delicate features. Satin black hair. A sequined blue and green dress. "That's odd." His fingers trailed over the worn fabric-old but lovingly cared for-of the red scarf around her neck. "Not a single hint of red, or any color close to it, on her person aside from this. I thought woman had a thing for matching their accessories to their clothes." He pulled his hand away with a soft sound of disgust. "Tch. It's filthy!" Activating his gear and swinging up onto a nearby roof, he turned and looked back down at her again as the thought occurred to him. _Where have I heard a story about a girl with a red scarf before?_

"…kasa! …ke…up!"

The distant voice barely penetrated the darkness that veiled her eyes, pulling her closer to the splitting pain that had begun to blossom at the base of her skull. She moaned.

"Mikasa!" It was Armin's voice.

"Thank God, she's coming around!"

She opened her eyes a few moments later; once her vision had adjusted to the blinding white light of the infirmary she found all of her friends gathered around her bed with looks of concern etched on their faces.

"What…happened?" she groaned, reaching up with one hand to feel at the tacky crust of dried blood that had formed where her head had been slammed into the stone street.

"We were about to ask you that!" Marco told her, his large brown eyes wide and his freckled face worried. "Jean came running to find us when you just ran out all of a sudden for no reason; we couldn't find you for hours, and when we finally did you were lying in the street!"

"Your skull is intact and you don't have a concussion, but you've been out cold for five hours!" Armin cut in. "Did you fall? What were you doing with no shoes on?"

That was right. She'd taken them off to climb onto the roof. "I was attacked; a man and a woman. She was controlling him somehow."

"Controlling him?" Reiner repeated. "How do you mean?"

"I…don't really know." She admitted. "He was a Chimera, but nothing like we've ever seen. He wore clothes, used gear, could speak! The woman called him Levi." Silent, the others exchanged glances. "What?"

"They must be the ones who stole it."

"Stole what?" Mikasa demanded, sitting up and causing the room to spin dizzingly. Did they know something that she didn't? "Stole _what_?" she repeated when no one answered right away.

"Um…" Krista finally spoke up hesitantly. "Commander Shadis wants to talk to you."

Swinging her legs out of bed she stood up and almost fell over. Armin jumped up as well and grabbed her arm to prop her up. "Mikasa, wait! You're not well!"

"I'm fine!" She assured him despite the increasing frequency of her headache; it felt as if someone were taking an ice pick to the inside of her skull. Luckily she managed to walk in a relatively straight line as she left the infirmary to make her way-barefoot and still in her dress-through the underground barracks below the castle to Commander Shadis' door. She knocked.

"Come in." A gruff voice immediately answered. Mikasa pushed open the door and walked inside. The burly man sitting behind the desk raised his bald head from the paper work that he'd been filing out to look up at her. "Ackerman."

"I just regained consciousness a few minutes ago, Sir. The others told me that you wanted to speak to me?" Looking down at the bloody, dirt stained and slightly tattered dress that she still wore she tacked on a hasty afterthought of "I haven't had time to change back into my uniform yet."

He made no comment on her last statement. "It is my understanding that you were attacked last night?"

She nodded. "By a man and a woman."

"Describe them for me."

"I…" Mikasa hesitated for a moment before answering. "One was just a crazy looking woman. The other as a Chimera."

"They had gear?" she nodded. "And cloaks?" again, she nodded. "You wouldn't have happened to see the insignia on them, would you?"

"I did, Sir."

"What was it?"

Black and white, broken up and shaped like "wings."

The veteran soldier lowered his head into his hands for a moment, an air of-was that anxiety? Fear, even?-surrounding this movement. "Him. I should have known."

"Him, Sir?" did he speak of Levi, the abberant Chimera? Or perhaps of the mysterious Erwin the pair had spoken of? Someone else entirely?

"Yes, Him. A traitor who we made the grave mistake of fiving power. Abberant Chimera like the one you encountered last night are his doing." Suddenly, with absolutely no warning, he leapt to his feet and began to pace pushing the chair back with a loud shriek. "Their trail has been followed to the edges of Wall Rose; they fled into the lost territories of Wall Maria, and only the best can be trusted to track them down and retrieve what they stole."

"What exactly did they steal, Sir?" it was rather bold of her to ask the question, she supposed, but if she was to recover something she needed to know-at the very least-what it looked like.

"That-this whole downward spiral of a situation-is classified, Ackerman. Highly classified. All that you need to know is that a valuable lab specimen-years of research into clearing the blight-was stolen. If we're to stand a hope of freeing Humanity from the tyranny of those monsters, that sample _must_ be recovered."

"Paramount, Sir. I understand."

"You're young, that is true, but you're the best we have. Humanity's strongest soldier. I'm trusting you to lead this mission and hunt them down. Take the rest of the 104th with you."

"I will, Sir."

"Ackerman." She looked back. "Take no prisoners. You're dismissed."

She left her superior's office and quickly made her way to her room, ripping off her dress and tossing it aside in favor of the familiar jacket and straps of her uniform. With the weight of her gear once more pulling at her waist and her dual swords in hand, Mikasa made her way down to the stable to retrieve her horse. Astride her pure white stallion, she went to join the others at the gates of Wall Rose.

"So, what have we got here Mikasa?" Connie asked excitedly from off to her left.

"A classified mission; Abberant, hyper-intelligent Chimera have stolen something highly important to the future survival of the Human race. Our job is to hunt them down and get it back."

"The last reports that we received have them headed directly North East of here." Annie announced. Mikasa nodded, looking away to hide her wince. She knew full well what lay directly North East of their current position, and wanted to avoid ever setting foot in that sad and broken place again if at all possible. "Retrieving this lost item is our only order?"

"No, we have one more."

The blonde regarded her with her usual cold, arctic blue gaze as the gates grinded open before them. "And that is?"

"Take no prisoners. Kill them all."


	2. Ambush

They'd been riding for hours straight since sunrise and for a long time the only sound exchanged between the group were the clopping of hooves and the occasional snorts of their horses, the jangling of their gear and the chirping of birds above their heads.

"We should rest soon, Mikasa." A voice-Betold by the sound of it, though seeing as it came from behind her position at the point of the formation she couldn't be entirely sure-called up to her. "We've been riding for hours; it's unwise to risk loosing a horse."

"There's a stream up ahead; it appears their trail crosses it. We'll stop there for a while to water the horses and consider making camp." She replied in her usual calm and stoic tones. "We should reach it in a few minutes time." The low lying, shallow, slow flowing stream that marked their position being only half a day's travel out from the place that had chased her through good dreams and nightmares alike for many years. "Keep on the look out. This is enemy held territory now and we can't afford our guard to slip for even a single moment." Even in the forest where she used to play as a little girl, both in the loving arms of her parents and while chasing on the heels of the coltish brown haired boy who had so quickly become the center of her world. As if sensing to where her thoughts were straying, Armin caught her eye with a questioning look; she shook her head just slightly in an infinitismal sign for him not to broach the subject. Having known her for long enough by now, he simply nodded and remained silent on the matter. Soon enough the trees broke apart and the grassy forest floor slopped downwards towards the rocky shallows. Dismounting her horse, Mikasa took hold of its reigns and lead it to the water; the others followed her lead but it wasn't long before Sasha walked off a ways on her own. She'd been standing there just staring at the trees for just over five minutes when Krista finally piped up on the matter.

"Uh, Sasha…what's wrong?"

"It's…quiet." The brunet replied almost airily. "Too quiet."

"So?" Ymir groused, attracted by the petite blonde's attention.

"I'm from a hunting village up north. I know nature; how it works. Small animals hide when they sense danger. We've been hearing birds all day, and yet now…nothing." Turning towards it them, it was revealed that something close to terror shone in her eyes. "Silence like this only means one thing; there's a predator around, and it's close by."

That was when they heard it; the sound of a snapping branch, deafening in the utter silence that otherwise surrounded them. Drawing her weapons, Mikasa immediately took charge of the matter. "Back to back; draw your weapons! We have no idea how many of them that there are or what direction they'll come from!" A rush of clattering gear and hissing blades as they all leapt into action, making a large circle of bristling steel; from whatever direction the first attack came from they'd be ready. The only sound for quite a while after that was the wind blowing through the trees, their own tense and nervous breaths and pounding heartbeats. Eyes flickered left and right at even the slightest movement of leaf or twig. Searching for any sign of danger, only to find nothing. Then,

"up there!"

Grey eyes swiveling upwards just in time to see the winged forms, Mikasa was left with no choice but to give an order that went against everything they'd been taught at the academy. "_Scatter!_" Those who obeyed without a second thought managed to leap clear, but a few hesitated just long enough to be thrown to the ground by the jarring impact of the dive-bomb landing; dust was thrown thickly into the air from the deep crater left behind, making them choke and leaving them nearly blind. _Visibility is down to almost zero; this has the potential to get bad fast._ She didn't need to see the green cloaks the two male chimera that had just crawled up from the crater wore to know that they were more of the same she had encountered the night prior. It was almost like they knew their tactics; knew to shatter their formation, to blind them so that it became all but child's play to pick them off one by one. And it was then that the horrifying truth hit her. _There's more of them!_ The scream of shock and fear from off to her left only served to confirm this; Mikasa whirled around and tore off towards the sound just as she heard Reiner swear viscously and Ymir yell "Krista!" It wasn't until she was very nearly on top of them that she could see through the dust; Krista, bruised but intact, was on the ground looking on in terror as Reiner tried to use his blades to pry a female chimera off of Ymir's back. Ginger haired, golden eyed and snarling furiously the cat-woman didn't seem in any hurry to allow him to do so and continued her attempts to claw the brunet's face off until the blonde managed to nail her across the back. Wounded but undeterred and now more than just a little bit angry, she released Ymir to turn on him with a furious hiss but the burly soldier had no intention of backing down, and with a pissed off and bleeding Ymir more than willing to help him the pair managed to begin pushing her back as Mikasa made it over to Krista.

"Are you alright, Lenz?"

"I-I'm fine!" She squeaked. "Ymir pushed me out of the way; that thing came out of nowhere and tried to rip my head off!"

"There's at least the two others that came down on us from above," she told the other calmly, "but it looks like it won't be too long until that one is at the very least run off if not taken care of." The female was being pushed hard, hissing and spitting and lashing out at one of her two attackers only to have the other dive in and attack the provided opening. Just when it looked like she might have succeeded in pinning Ymir against a tree Reiner came up from behind for an open shot at her back. _It's over._

"_Petra!"_ The two could hear the sound of Reiner's ribs cracking a blow to the chest by the male's powerful tail from their position three yards away, watching in shock as he was sent flying to skid to a stop against a tree. A man with blonde hair done back behind his head and reptilian features including lizard-like claws and patches of dark green scales in places. "Keep your guard up; Captain Levi definitely won't be very pleased if you don't come back in one piece." Did she imagine the slight blush that painted the woman's cheeks? An illusion caused by the swirling dust perhaps? Before she could determine this, her attention was again redirected by Annie, who materialized out of the cloud of dust and took a viscous slash at the man only to have him dodge clear and take off again. They'd trained for years to fight the Chimera, battled the creatures for their entire adult lives; they were the best that the walls had to offer, and yet this level of organization by creatures formerly considered only sub-human at best was something they had never faced and simply weren't prepared for. They were losing; injuries abound on their side and yet the opposing force of 4 strong had barely received any wounds their regenerative abilities didn't render ineffective in mere moments. If they stayed, they'd be wiped out. It was a difficult order to make, both for her pride and the pride of her comrades, but she knew that she didn't have any other choice.

"Ymir, are you alright?"

"I'm fine; they're just scratches." The brunet grunted at her.

"Krista, can you walk?"

"Yeah; I'm not really injured, just a little shaken up." Her blue eyes fell on their moaning companion who lay half-curled up on one side a few feet away. "Reiner is hurt pretty badly though."

Mikasa nodded. "I know; I need you both to help me lift him on my horse." She whistled sharply through her teeth as the other two got to their feet and did the same. It wasn't long before the sound of approaching hooves reached their ears and three horses materialized before them out of the dust like ghosts. "Try and be careful not to jostle him too much; lay him over the back of the saddle." She kept look out as the other two did as she asked, and then the three mounted up. "_Retreat! They're too strong!"_ If Mikasa were being honest with herself she had expected to have to call out the same order multiple times before any of the others obeyed and that it would only be with great reluctance that they'd comply, but to her mild surprise the only thing she heard was a chorus of sharp whistles as they called to their mounts and the thundering of hooves as they streaked after her. It was of some relief to be free of the choking crowd-the air was easier to breathe and visibility was once again at 100%-but that was only small consolation for the fact that their four attackers were close behind. She dug her heels into the sides of her horse hard enough to make it scream in pain and run faster, but though the grounded pair quickly fell behind their winged assailants didn't falter in the slightest until finally, just when it seemed they were about to catch them, they banked to the left and flew off quickly vanishing into the trees.

"What the hell?" Jean demanded loudly as they slowed to a gallop, then a canter and finally stopped with their steeds snorting and frothing beneath them. "They had us! Why did they just suddenly leave?"

"That might have something to do with it; look!" Armin pointed into the sky, drawing all of their attention to the pillar of green smoke that rose to the Heavens. "It's a signal flare of some sort; they were called off."

"So they were sent to hold out attention, then?" Marco asked, looking over at him as he cradled his bleeding and badly lacerated arm.

"It doesn't matter either way, right?" Connie said glumly. "We're way off course now; we've lost the trail."

"No, we didn't." Mikasa said coldly. "We find where that flare came from and we find them."

"That smoke will have faded away within the hour; how do you expect us to memorize its position without any landmarks?" Jean snapped at her. "How in hell are we ever supposed to figure out exactly where it originated from?"

"It came from Shiganshina."

"And just how do you know that? There haven't been maps of the territories of Wall Maria for years, yet you knew where that stream was and now you're claiming to know precisely where that flare came from down to the name of the town? If I didn't know you better, I would swear that you're hiding something!"

She cast him her most dangerous glare, fixing him with it until he became visibly uncomfortable, and then turned her attention to Armin. "We'll set up camp here; tend to the wounded and rest the horses. In the morning, I'll take those of us who can still fight to run down the end of that trail." That said, Mikasa turned her back on them and started walking towards the trees.

"Mikasa, where are you going?"

"Collecting fire wood," she answered bluntly. "I'll be back by nightfall."


	3. The Secrets We Hide

With only a small amount of pain medication in the first aid kit Armin had brought along, it was a lucky thing that Reiner-with 5 broken ribs and a bruised lung-had a high tolerance for pain. Ymir had a bandage covering her face and shoulder, Marco's arm was in a sling, Krista was covered head to toe in bruises, Sasha had a black eye and Annie had a large cut on her forehead that she had declined to allow him to treat on threat of breaking his arm. One of the few who had for the most part escaped injury, Armin sat by the fire in the middle of their provisional camp keeping watch both over the wounded and for any threat that might approach them. Darkness had fallen six hours prior and-after a meager dinner of state bread and dried meat-the others had turned in to sleep for the night. Or so he thought.

"Arlert." He jumped at the sound of the other's voice.

"J-Jean? You're still awake?" he asked in surprise as the ash blonde sat beside him on the log. "It isn't time to change watch yet; you can still sleep for a few more hours."

"Exchange of watch isn't why I'm here."

"Then…why?"

"Mikasa is very evasive; confronting her about the truth won't get me anywhere, no matter how much sleep I lose over it. But you," when his amber eyes fell on him there was something almost predatory shining in their depths. "I figure that I could get the truth out of you."

"And what makes you think I have it?" he didn't stutter, but shifted nervously; he knew the look that Jean had, he'd seen it countless times years ago in the eyes of someone else. He knew enough about that spark of danger to be aware that it marked the other soldier as willing to do whatever he had to to get the answers that he wanted.

"You've known her for the longest," Jean said after a moment's pause. "I always saw you with her back in the trainee days, and even after we graduated you were often the only one she would ever let approach her. I used to be so very jealous of you."

Oh boy. He'd always known that Jean had a thing for Mikasa. Always known that, in many ways, he was just like Eren. Including impassioned volatility. "I-It isn't like that and it never was! We're childhood friends is all."

"Ah-hah!" he smiled triumphantly, sitting back on the log. "So you _do_ know about her past?"

"I…yeah."

"Well, spill it. What is she hiding?"

"Jean, I can't."

"Why not?" this was clearly not what he wanted to hear. "If Mikasa can't trust us enough to divulge the truth about her past than that is her problem. I never would have expected you to have the same trust issues, Arlert!"

"This has nothing to do with trust issues, Jean! We could get in HUGE trouble is anyone ever found out about the truth of where we came from!"

"I don't kiss and tell; secrets safe with me. On my honor."

"I…don't know."

"How many years have we known each other? How many years have we fought together? We may not be 'friends' but when have I ever failed to have your back?"

_"Come on, Armin! What's so bad about those dusty old books that you can't show me? Do you really think I'd tell on you after we've known each other all these years? After all the times you've covered for me?_" He'd given in to him, too. With a sigh, Armin looked away. "Rather than making up a story and risk not being able to keep it straight we agreed to never speak of where we came from at all. I don't think you realize the gravity of this Jean; if I tell you this and you _ever _breathe a word of it to anyone we'll both be killed!"

His eyes widened. "You're talking like the pair of you committed treason."

"We did." Now he paled. "I'm sure that you heard about what happened in Wall Maria. You know about the aftermath, the destruction, even if you don't know Shiganshina by name."

"Yeah, of course I know; we all know. The blight got in; everyone in Maria was infected and a lot of them turned into those things. Everyone had to be put down."

"Not everyone," he disagreed. "A soldier named Hannes who was a family friend of both my family and Mikasa's adopted one smuggled us to safety in Trost. We were lucky, we weren't infected and they didn't realise we'd escaped but not all of us got out."

"What do you mean 'not all of us'?" Jean repeated, the nervousness that had just moment's ago been etched across his face now fading into confusion. "Was there someone else with you?"

Armin nodded. "His name was Eren Yeager. My best friend since we were very little and Mikasa's adopted brother; he saved her life the night they first met. He meant a great deal to her, and after he died…she was never the same."

He had to give Jean at least a little bit of credit when he put it all together without any help from him at all and came to the conclusion of "the scarf…the one she's always wearing…was it his?"

"He gave it to her when they were nine, just after her parents were murdered." A pause. "The only small mercy of it is that we didn't actually witness the moment he died. He pushed us ahead of him through the window onto the neighbor's roof; they grabbed him before he could follow and dragged him away." The fire guttered loudly, spitting up an enormous cloud of sparks as one of the logs within cracked in half. A cold wind hissed through the trees. Off in the distance, an owl hooted.

"When she ran out on me the other night," Jean finally said with a heavy sigh, "could it have been because I accidently did or said something that reminded her of her brother?"

"It's possible; you're a lot like him after all." Armin told him. "A lot of things remind her of Eren; normally she's able to shrug it off and keep moving forward, even if she only does it by withdrawing further into her own mind, but lately…it's been getting bad." He looked over at where she lay curled up just on the edge of the field of light shed by the fire, head nested on the soft scarf still wound tight around her neck. "The scarf has begun to fall apart, and so has she."

"Wow," he grumbled, pulling his legs up to his chest and resting his chin on top of his knees. "I feel like a real ass; I can't believe I interrogated her like that. If I'd known I was clawing at barely healed wounds-."

"A lot of the others-all of them probably-were wondering the same thing. Don't beat yourself up over it." He told the other. "I am worried, though I have to stay here with the injured, so I can't go with you tomorrow. And she'll be setting foot in the ruins of her former life for the first time in a decade. Mikasa is the strongest person I have ever met, but even she has a breaking point. I'm not sure that she'll be able to handle it."

"I'll watch her," he promised the other. "I'm sure that it'll end up doing her some good to be back there, in the long run. Will let her put at least some of the ghosts of her past to rest."

"Yeah, I'm sure it will." Armin agreed as he returned his eyes to the flickering embers.

"I just can't seem to get to sleep tonight; I hope you don't mind if I stay up a while."

"Not at all." They continued to sit together for a while as the stars spun across the sky and clouds drifted over the moon plunging the night around them into even deeper darkness. Then, feeling a strange crawling sensation beginning to creep across his skin, Armin looked up from the fire and froze. He felt his heart stop as he was met with the fluorescent green gaze of the shadow figure standing just within the tree line. "Jean!"

"Oh, shit!" For a moment that seemed to stretch on forever the thing stood there staring at them, then its eyes flickered as it blinked, turned and began making its way back into the dark trees. Jean was on his feet in seconds, weapon in hand and tearing off after it.

"Jean, wait!"

"We have to go after that thing!" Left with no choice Armin chased after him, scrambling on the heels of his much taller companion as he sprinted after the shadow that had been scouting out their camp. The thing was _fast_! No matter how quickly the pair ran, they still managed to lose sight of it as they came into a clearing. "Where did it go?" A snarl from directly above them answered that question. Raising both their eyes as the moon broke through the clouds they caught sight of the chimera perched on a limb 20 feet above their heads. Tall and, judging by its build, male it was snarling and growling at them in a clear attempt to scare them off. It, like all of the others they had seen, was clad in a forest green cloak and military-like uniform of tan jacket, matching pants and straps; worn under all of this was what looked like a simple green cotton shirt. The skin on its hands was tan, its long calloused fingers tipped in rending talons. A tail-long and wire thin with a tuft of black hair at the tip-lashed the air as it puffed out the feathers on its expansive wings and spread them wide in an attempt to make itself look bigger. Large horns arced gracefully up from its head, but with the moon shinning from behind it its face was in shadow, and all that they could see if its features were green eyes and flashing milk white fangs. "Come down here, you bastard! Fight like a man, even if you are a beast!"

It scoffed at them, sideling to one side on its branch. "Kӓmpfen sie nicht, was ich herekommen! Ich wollte nu, sie zu sehen; um zu sehen, ob es whar sei." Something about the language was familiar to Armin, but the guttural growling tones were much darker and rougher than they had been when last he'd heard them delivered. But that wasn't possible; he was dead. Had been for years."

_"Come back here, you bastard!_" Jean's furious yell startled him out of his thoughts in time to see the dark, winged form swoop off and vanish into the night.

"Jean!" He grabbed the other's arm, managing to stop him from running off after the Chimera again and very nearly being bowled over in the process. "Running after it will only get us lost or worse! We need to return to camp; we'll worry about it in the morning!"

Jean seemed reluctant to obey, but eventually tore his eyes away from where the creature had disappeared and stepped back. "You're right; with us gone there's no one keeping watch. Let's go!"

As the ash blonde tramped passed him and marched back towards camp Armin couldn't help but look over his shoulder again at the branch on which the winged shadow had been perched. First a lab breach. Then abberant Chimera. And now someone that, by the dialect and language that they had spoken, was definitely from somewhere in the territories of Wall Maria. To him, it didn't add up. Didn't sit right. _What the hell is really going on here?_

The next morning, at just before dawn, those few who were uninjured or at the very least still able to fight-Mikasa, Connie, Sasha, Annie, Bertold and Jean-had left Armin behind in camp to care for their injured fellows and set out towards the ruins of the town of Shiganshina just as the light of the rising sun had begun to paint a strip of blazing orange across the sky. The sun rose higher, then began to move as a blazing chariot across the sky. It was noon by the time they finally reached it; once a large bustling town, Shinganshina had since been reduced to a burned out ruin that was little more than a crater in the ground. The cobbled streets were badly torn up and buckled beneath the rigors of the elements, the stones broken and blackened with soot from the razing that had taken place there. The graves of buildings-stores and schools and homes-were marked only by a few jagged wooden pylons and the charred skeletons of stone foundations. Out of the corner of one eye Jean cast a glance at Mikasa; her eyes were fixed straight ahead but she had pulled her scarf up over her face almost as if she were unable to keep her expression neutral but didn't want to show her pain. Briefly, he wondered what she might be seeing when she looked on what, to their eyes, was only ruin.

"Alright," he said, clearing his throat and taking charge of the situation so that she didn't have to. "Shall we split up to cover more ground?" the others-aside from Mikasa, who seemed to still be lost in her thoughts-nodded in agreement. "How about groups of two; Bertold, come with me. Connie, you're with Sasha. Annie, go with Mikasa-."

"No." The first time she had spoken all morning; there was an undisguised tremor in her voice. "I'm going alone. There's…something that I need to do." Without registering the other's words to the contrary if any came, she urged her horse onwards at a canter and set off down the street. As she passed by the ruined buildings, in her mind, they momentarily restored themselves to what they had once been. Bright red brick with flower boxes hanging in the windows. Wooden cabins with slate tile roofs and well kempt lawns. Dogs and children running rampant through the streets. Cants lounging on fences. Pies cooling on windowsills. The school rising on the farside of town with a bell tower on top, the brass bell inside merrily tolling out the hour. The sights, the memories attached to them, made her heart ache. But it didn't truly break until she arrived at her final destination. Eren's home-her home-had largely escaped from the flames, but that hadn't left it any less destroyed. The walls were lopsided, the roof gone in places and collapsing in others. The windows were all broken out, the broken door still hanging to one side on its hinges from when the soldiers had broken it down. Half of the house had rose up off its foundation while the other half had sunk a few inches into the ground; what she could see of the cellar was over flowing with stagnate water and mud. Her breathing becoming almost hesitant, she dismounted and tied up her horse then went inside. The rotted wooden floor boards creaked dangerously beneath her feet as she gingerly entered through the doorway. The home, for the first time that she had ever seen it, was silent and cold. Trailing her hand along the slimy molding wall, she drew forwards into the room that had once been the kitchen. Leaves and twigs had blown in through the windows with the countless passing seasons, stacked in drifts along the walls, but Carla's yellow and white curtains-the lacy fabric badly torn and the color stained grey-brown by time-still hung, somehow, over the shattered kitchen windows. The sink had filled with rain water, and algae-thick and green-had grown over the unwashed dishes of the last meal they had ever shared. The lock on Pandora's box broke at last; standing in the house that in her childhood had become the closest thing she'd ever known to heaven, the container fell to the side and the contents spilled out and for the first time Mikasa allowed herself to break down. To feel. To mourn for all that she had lost. As the past was finally allowed to overwhelm her, she finally began to cry.

_ "No, Eren! You can't have any cookies before dinner or you'll ruin your appetite." Carla chided, having spied her 10 year old son attempting to sneak past her towards where the cookie jar sat on the windowsill._

_ "But Mom" He whined, peering up at her through the uneven dark brown bangs that dripped into his wide teal eyes. "We want cookies!"_

_ "And you can have them, after you eat your vegetables." Pushing a loose strand of her black hair behind one ear, she added "I'm making your favorite; carrots."_

_ "I hate carrots!" He mewled. Smiling, she leaned down and gently pinched his cheek. "Agh! M-mom, don't don that!"_

_ "I only do it because I love you."_

_ "Yeah yeah."_

_ Rolling her eyes, she ran her fingers through his hair. "This is getting really long; you need a hair cut little mister."_

_ "Never!" He took off running up the stairs, leaving his laughing mother at the stove. Once he'd closed the door of the bedroom that they shared behind him he turned with a huff to face Mikasa, who was sitting on the side of their bed beside the pile of cookies she had swiped. "Why do I always have to be the bait?"_

_ "Because you always get caught," she informed him bluntly as he came over to sit beside her; she handed him his half of their haul. The brunet wasted no time in shoving a cookie into his mouth._

_ "Carrots!" He grumbled crossly. "Why is it always carrots? Do I look like a rabbit to you?"_

_ "Eren," both looked up at the stern voice to find Eren's father standing in the doorway, still in his white lab coat and with his strong arms crossed over his chest. "Didn't your mother just tell you that you couldn't have any cookies until after dinner?"_

_ "D-Dad!"_

_ "Good evening Grisha," Mikasa said politely. "We didn't realized you'd come home."_

_ "Yeah, good evening Dad," Eren echoed with a grin, crumbs sticking to his face as he held out a cookie. "How was work? Any stories?"_

_ The doctor raised an eyebrow at his son. "Are you attempting to bribe me, Eren?"_

_ "No!"_

_ "Yes."_

_ "Mika!" The brunet looked aghast, making his companion giggle. "Come on Dad, please! Don't tattle!"_

_ Shaking his head, the older man stepped forward with a sigh and took the cookie that he was offered. "Alright, I won't tell your mother as long as you guys don't let it slip that I'm excepting bribes." He winked at his son, who smiled widely in return._

_ "We won't tell. We promise."_

_ "Yeah; your secret it safe with us."_

_ "Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all the way!"_

_ "Eren, you're so off tune that it's ridiculous!" Mikasa told him playfully, bumping shoulders with her brother and giggling as he glared at her from beneath the fluffy white fringe of the santa hat perched on his head. _

_ "Yeah," Armin agreed with a laugh, "if we go caroling with you they'll just slam the door in our faces."_

_ "H-Hey!" Eren protested. "I'm not __**that**__ bad! Actually, Mom says I'm good."_

_ "She's you're mother; she has to say that."_

_ "Well, I bet I'm a lot better than you!" Mikasa sighed and shook her head as the two boys started throwing snowballs at each other to settle their argument._

_ "It's Christmas Eve; I'm sure that everyone has had enough of carols by now anyway." She noted, rubbing her hands together through her red mittens in an effort to restore some warmth to her fingers. "Let's head home for hot chocolate; Carla and Grisha should have finished hiding the pickle in the tree by now."_

_ The two 12 year old boys looked over at her, snow dripping down Armin's face from when Eren had filled his hood with the cold white fluff and yanked it over his head,_

_ "Mmm, hot chocolate." Little squabble entirely forgotten, Eren smacked his lips together and smiled. "That sounds amazing! Let's hurry!"_

_ 'Blood. The smell. The color. It was everywhere. Soaking the floor. Staining the walls. Smearing the knife that was rapidly drawing towards her.' Eyes flying open Mikasa sat bolt upright in bed and screamed, putting her head between her knees and beginning to rock back and forth. The creak of the bedsprings and shifting of sheets made her squeak and reel away until she fell out of bed and landed on the cold wooden floor. Footsteps on the wood, walking around the bed towards her and making her flinch each time they came closer._

_ "N-No! Stay away! Don't hurt me!" _

_ "Mika." His voice, gentle and calm and sad. Not the voice of her kidnappers; her parent's murderers. Raising her tear stained cheeks, she peered up at him morosely like a puppy that had been beat and he stared back with sorrow in his eyes._

_ "Eren?"_

_ He nodded, crouching down in front of her without once breaking eye contact. "Yeah, it's me. It's just me."_

_ Just him? He could never be __**just**__ him; not to her. The 13 year old boy who had saved her life, brought her to a happier time and another loving home. And he didn't even know how much he truly meant to her. "It was horrible. I…I saw them again. Saw them die."_

_ As she burst into another fit of tears Eren pulled her into his lap and let her curl against his chest. She hiccupped and sniffled as he gently soothed her, using his thumb to rub small circles on her back. "It was only a nightmare, Mika. A bad dream." He purred. "Those animals can't ever hurt you again; we made sure of that, remember?" How he had appeared out of the darkness like a God-sent angel when she needed him most. Killed two of the monsters that had hurt her and given her the strength to fight herself. She nodded. "Are you better." She nodded again. "Do you think you can sleep?"_

_ "Yes."_

_ "Ok." He started to pull away, but stopped when she grabbed the hem of his sleeve and lifted her into his arms instead. Crawling back into the bed they shared, he set her down and then stretched himself out beside her. Mikasa immediately curled up against him and rested her head on his chest as he pulled the covers up over them both. It was only a few minutes later that she fell asleep to the steady beating of his heart._

_ Yes, I remember. You gave me this; the strength that I needed to fight, to survive. There's so much that I owe to you, Eren. But most of all I owe you for showing me the absolute truth of life._ Pulling her scarf from around her neck, she ran the soft fabric through her hands. _This world is cruel, but it is also very beautiful. I think…I think that I might finally be ready to let go._ Holding the scarf close for a moment longer in an attempt to memorize the soft feeling of it against her skin, an effort to find something of his scent still clinging to the aged threads while deep down knowing it had long since faded away, she carefully folded it up and set it on the ground. _Goodbye Eren. I hope that you and I will one day find each other again, but…I've realized the truth that, for now, clinging to you in the way that I have been will only hold me back. _Before she could think better of it, doubt herself or go back to retrieve her treasured possession, Mikasa turned and quickly left the house. Outside the winter air was cold, but the sunlight was bright in the cloudless sky and warmed her skin. She felt…different; she'd let go of something that had weighed heavy on her shoulders for far too long, but she wasn't sure if she'd gained anything for it or just been left hollow. Mikasa didn't know how long she had been standing there before the fear-filled shriek of her horse brought her back to reality; she whirled around just as the winged figure smashed into her form, its set black feathers eclipsing the sun, and darkness overwhelmed him.

**** German translation: I haven't come to fight with you. I only wanted to see her; to see if it was true.**

***** About the pickle in the Christmas tree; it's an old German tradition to hide a pickle in the tree on Christmas eve and have the children look for it in the morning; whoever finds the pickle would get an extra present.**


	4. Reunion

_"Something doesn't feel right."_

_ Concerned, Mikasa walked over and pressed her hand against her 15 year old adoptive brother's forehead. "You don't have a fever."_

_ "That is what I meant, Mika. Something doesn't feel right about," he gestured cryptically around them, "this. All of this. Today. I have goosebumps and my hair is standing on end!"_

_ "It does feel a bit…off." Armin agreed, his blue eyes shifting nervously left and right. The air was very still without a breath of wind to be had. The pigeons normally scrounging in the market for crumbs were gone. No domestic animals-dogs or cats-could be seen. The birds hadn't uttered a single note since the sun had risen. Even the insects had made themselves scarce. _

_ Eren's head was on a swivel, his green-blue eyes narrowed. "I don't like this." Leaping to his feet, he grabbed his two companions and helped them up as well. "We need to get out of the open; get across town to my house and hide in the cellar until whatever the hell is coming blows over."_

_ "But the cellar is locked, Eren!" Mikasa protested. "Your father took that, along with whatever it was he was doing down there, with him when he left."_

_ "No he didn't." Pulling the old antique key from where it hung around his neck, he showed it to them. "Father was acting so strangely before he left; evasive and defensive, it was so weird. The last thing he said before he ran off to who knows where was "if anything happens, take your mother your sister and Armin and lock yourselves in the cellar until the Wings of Freedom come for you." Whatever that means." They had just begun jogging through the streets when they heard it; a large explosion that shook the ground with the force of a violent earth quake. And then the screaming started, inhuman howls and moans ripping through the air along with them. Reports of gunfire spattered the distance as the soldiers of the Garrison Division stationed in their town engaged whatever threat had made itself known. Terrified, the trio started to run; it wasn't long before they began catching glimpses of the twisted forms running rampant through the streets and the soldiers that were fighting them._

_ "Chimera!" Armin yelped, freezing up in horror and stopping in his tracks as he covered his head with his hands and started to shake. "They're…inside? This isn't real; it can't be! It's a nightmare!"_

_ "__**It is real!**__" Eren snapped, grabbing hold of his friend's arm and proceeding to drag him along. "Keep running! The house isn't far now!" The house at last came into sight as they darted through an alleyway and turned off onto another street. As they rounded the corner of the house where the entrance to the cellar stood, they were confronted with a group of armed soldiers standing outside it. "Hey! Hey! What's going on; can you help us?" It wasn't until he was in the sights of their guns that he realized the men weren't there to save them._

_ "__**Eren!"**__ Mikasa tackled him to the ground just as the soldier's pulled the triggers, dragging him just clear of the bullets that peppered the ground where his feet had been with craters. Recovering quickly from the shock, he leapt back to his feet and began to drag both of them backwards towards the front door. _

_ "Inside!" He shoved them in, slammed the door and locked it then bolted up the stairs; they followed right on his heels as fists and boots began assailing the door. "We have to get to Hannes; I don't know if he'll help us or not or even if there's anything that he can do but he's our only hope!" Tears were beginning to gather unbidden in his eyes as he rushed to the window in their bedroom and began to struggle with the frame. "They took Mom. They'll kill us too if we're caught; it must be an outbreak! They think we're infected!" He heaved with all his might and the frame shuddered but didn't budge. "Damn it! It's painted shut; I can't get it open!" Acting quickly, Mikasa snatched the cast iron lamp off the desk and broke out the glass just as the sound of the front door flying open off its hinges reached their ears. "Go! GO!" Eren urged as running footsteps ascended the stairs and rushed down the hall. He all but threw Mikasa out onto the neighbor's roof, and then Armin, but just as he was about to follow himself the bedroom door exploded open and the soldiers rushed inside. He made a mad dive for the opening but the nearest man caught him around the waist just as he was halfway through and began to pull him back. Mikasa caught him by the wrist and Armin grabbed her from behind and both began to pull as Eren struggled, pushing against the house with his free hand as he struggled and thrashed to get free. But the soldiers were stronger, and his hand slipped out of hers. _

_ "Eren!" She tried to crawl back through the window after him, but Armin caught hold of her again and began dragging her away across the roof._

_ "__**Run! Run and never look back, do you hear me!"**_

She regained consciousness quite suddenly lying on her back on an old, decaying mattress on a half-collapsed bed frame in the middle of a one-room cabin that was shockingly familiar. The furniture-all but fallen to pieces now-was still more than recognizable to her, especially the little table where she'd been sitting with her mother that day. Outside it was raining, the droplets pounding relentlessly against the wood and streaking the window glass which still remained mostly intact. Pools of dried blood-dark and rust red-were still etched across the floor near the doorway; the door was tightly shut and, as far as she knew at least, she was alone. _My parent's cabin._ Mikasa realized. _But…how did I end up here?_ It was only a few miles outside of Shiganshina-30, perhaps 40 miles away and up a mountain side-but that was still hours of travel away on horse back. So how had she ever managed to end up where she was when the last thing she could remember were large feathered wings blotting out the sun outside Eren's old home. The sound of the door creaking open on rusted hinges made her jump, the hollow footsteps on the old wooden floor filling her with dread as the shadow figure approached her, stopping only once it loomed over her position still lying on the bed. Large, clawed hands. Enormous horns. Gigantic feathered wings. A long whip-like tail. Tan skin. Wild brown hair that stuck up in all directions. Striking, vivid, and oh-so-very-familiar teal eyes. _Sweet Sina!_ Mikasa thought in total shock, staring up at the boy-the man, now-who she had thought of as dead for the past ten years. "Eren."

"Find anything?"

"No, nothing. You?"

"Zilch."

"It's a bust with us too."

"Ugh! Don't tell me that the trail has gone cold; Mikasa won't be happy!"

"Wait," Jean said suddenly, looking around at the faces of the gathered group. "She hasn't come back yet?"

"No; we assumed that she went back to camp on her own." Connie informed him. "She's been acting real off since yesterday, so it wouldn't be too strange of a stretch for her to take off on her own like that."

"That said, we shouldn't just assume something like that." Bertold pointed out. "She might have run into trouble; she may be our strongest, but it's already been well proven that these Abberants are too much for even Mikasa to handle. And, like Connie said, she hasn't been herself lately; that's a recipe for disaster."

"She went off to the West through town on her own, so she has to be around here somewhere. Dead or alive."

"But how do we even begin to guess at where?"

"Simple; we look for her horse." Annie said bluntly, urging her own forward at a canter. "If she went inside any of the buildings, it should be tied up outside. If she went back to camp, we should find a trail; it's been raining for hours, and the ground is all but mush."

"And if something else happened?" Sasha squeaked.

"Then we should find a dead horse too, now shouldn't we?" They were off at a canter through the streets now, the hooves of their horses clomping loudly against the silence. Ruined building after ruined building. Cold reminders of lives cut short; hopes and dreams brutally shattered apart. Families crushed. Knowing what he now did about his long-time crush's past, Jean could swear that he could almost hear the ghosts of the past moaning and crying out whenever the wind blew.

"There!" Connie's shout startled him from his thoughts; following the direction in which the other pointed with his eyes, Jean caught sight of the white stallion-eyes wide and body shaking with terror-desperately trying to free itself from the tree to which it had been tied.

"Watch yourselves; from how freaked out that horse is something definitely happened here." Dismounting from his own saddle, Jean ran across the open ground to calm the terrorized animal down before untying it. "Sasha, watch the horses. Connie, come inside with me to search the house. Annie, Bertold, stay out here and search the perimeter." Wasting no time despite the danger of the collapsing building Jean rushed inside with Connie on his heels; the smaller solider made his way up the bowing stairs, finding nothing on the upper floor but ravaged bedrooms and a badly destroyed window. Jean went straight down the hall and found himself in what might have once been a kitchen. There, sitting neatly folded on the floor beside the remains of a table, he saw it; Mikasa's precious red scarf. "In here!" Hearing his call, the other swiftly rushed back down the stairs and hurried over. Picking it up, feeling the soft aged threads run between his fingers, Jean looked up at him. "What in God's name would lead her to leave this behind?"

"I don't know," Connie said with a shrug. "Maybe this places means something to her? Maybe the person who gave that to her lived here? One thing's for certain; that was folded up and placed, not torn off in a struggle. So if anything happened it wasn't in here."

"But that doesn't mean it didn't happen; maybe the other's found some clues outside." With scarf in hand, the pair immediately made their way back out into the pouring rain. "Ugh, damn this weather!" He grumbled, narrowing his amber eyes and raising a hand to shield his face. "If anything was out here it may have been washed away by now."

"It looks like Annie and Bertold went around the back." Connie pointed out. "We should take a look around here at the front in case they didn't or they missed something." Nodding, Jean set off to the right and Connie to the left as Sasha watched them from where she tended to the horses. Broken stone; jagged, blackened and sticking up in all directions. Grey. Brown. Rimmed in soot and veined in crystalized minerals from the incinerating heat that had ripped through the settlement. A few shriveled, brownish skeletons of weeds that had been killed off by the recent frost. Then he saw it. Bending down, Jean picked up the mottled brown-black feather that had become caught between two of the stones of the street. It was the length of his forearm, silky smooth and far too big to belong to any living bird. Dread had just begun to fill him when he heard Connie call him over. "Here! Over here!"

Running footsteps. Scattering loose stones as Annie and Bertold came racing back around the house. And then they once more all gathered around together to stare at the newest clue they're found. To say that it was evidence of a struggle was understating things. Some of Mikasa's spare blades had been knocked clear out of their holders and lay scattered amongst the stones along with a boot, some more feathers and, worst of all, a few sizeable smears of blood.

"So that's it then? She's gone?" Sasha squeaked. "One of those things took her?" He wanted to deny it. Want to go after her; to play the knight in shining armor and sheathe his swords in the chest of the Chimera that would ever dare to touch her. But there was no trail to follow. No reason to think that she was even still alive.

"Unfortunately," Jean said, "it is. There's nothing more that we can do here. We need to get back to the walls. Inform the Commander of our failures." He knew full well what was responsible for taking her. That winged coward bastard they'd caught the night before. _If Arlert hadn't stopped me from going after that creature this never would have happened!_ Walking over to the horses with the others staring at him in open shock, Jean pulled himself up into the saddle and started to ride off knowing that they would follow him soon enough. _I swear on my life, and on my honor, that that feathered bastard will pay for what he's done!_


	5. Half Truths

_~'Sweet Sina!' she thought in total shock, staring up at the boy-the man now-who she had thought of as dead for the past ten years. "Eren."~_

For a long moment he simply continued to stare at her without answering. Then he nodded, sat down on the edge of the bed and allowed his hands to fall into his lap. "Sorry." Was all that Eren said to her.

"Sorry?" she repeated, a bit taken aback by the response as confusion set in; it certainly didn't help that the emotion-happiness of seeing him, relief that, in spite of it all, he was alive, sorrow that he himself had been saddled with the curse, transformed into one of the creatures that she hated-was overwhelming her to the point where her head began to spin. "For what?"

Again, he looked up at her; there was a margin of guilt in his teal eyes as they scanned over her form. "For one thing, I must have scared the daylight out of you."

"Eren-!"

"For another, your uniform is torn, most of your blades is gone and you're missing a shoe."

"I don't care about any of that-!"

"And for a third, I used too much of my strength; I hurt you."

It was at that moment that the dull throbbing ache threading through her entire body finally registered. Looking down at herself, Mikasa noticed for the first time that she was bruised and bloody; a particularly deep cut on her arm had been carefully bandaged to stop the bleeding. "Oh." A rather lame response that did nothing to ease his guilt on the matter, but then again she never had been very good with sentiments. "Believe me when I tell you that I have had a lot worse than this; that wolf-bastard certainly did a number on my when he formally introduced my head to the street."

At her words Eren laughed, and happiness again flooded through her at the dark familiar sound. "Wolf bastard? Don't be so hard on my Lance Corporal Mika. It's only because he went to me right away with a tale about a girl with a red scarf that I managed to reach Shiganshina in time to see you." He shifted nervously, suddenly becoming apologetic. "I know it probably wasn't-hell it definitely wasn't-the smartest move to kidnap you like this…and it's kind of pathetic really…but I really needed to talk to you and I couldn't risk any of your idiot friends stumbling on us. This was the first place that I thought of."

"It's alright, don't worry about that." Him kidnapping her was the very least of her worries. She was happy-elated even-to see him, that was true…but she was a soldier first and foremost. She couldn't forget her duty, or the damage that had been caused by his kind. She needed to know more; he looked like her brother, talked like her brother and acted as he did, but how could she really be sure that he was the Eren she had known? According to his earlier words, and the military like uniform he wore, he worked with-or at the very least had a connection to-the Chimera that had stolen the samples that were needed back so desperately. And, now that the trail had gone cold, he was also her best chance of recovering them and finding out some much needed information on their overall motivations. "So…you're a soldier?"

"I suppose you could say that, yeah." Eren said. "I know how you must feel about Chimera after everything you've been through, but…it really isn't what you think. The Scouting Legion really does have Humanity's best interests in mind; the Commander is a good man."

"The Scouting Legion?" she raised an eyebrow at him; this was the first time she had heard of such a thing. It sounded like the name of a regiment, but not one with which she was familiar and certainly not military. Rather than answering this time, Eren simply shook his head and withdrew.

"I can't."

"You can't tell me?" she repeated, sounding almost hurt without even having to try. "Eren-."

"I can't Mika. Not when I know you're going back to those walls."

She crossed her arms over her chest, well aware that one could only look so fierce while sitting cross legged on a barely standing bed but hoping that it would be enough to get her point across. "Eren Yeager, I am not going anywhere."

"But you're a soldier."

"And your sister; you are all the family that I have left, and that comes before duty." His brown hair was slightly longer than she remembered it, falling to his shoulders which had come to be as broad as his father's before him. His legs were long and powerful but thin, much like his arms that were crossed over his well-toned chest as he assumed a position much like her own. But from the look in his eyes, the hope that she had put there, she could tell that he dearly wanted to believe her. Mikasa only allowed herself to feel a little bit guilty at the deception she was pulling. "I've suffered through a decade of thinking you were dead, Eren. Now that I have you back, I'm not about to let you go running off again. Not unless you take me with you."

"You'd do that?" he sounded genuinely surprised. "Even if it meant that you would have to work in concert with the Chimera? Even now that I'm one of them?"

"That doesn't change the fact that you're my brother and best friend; you're still the man you used to be," she told him, "horns and wings non-with-standing. And, as Humanity's current strongest soldier it is my sworn duty to work towards what is best for mankind as a whole regardless of what I must sacrifice. Even if that means going against the ruling of the King himself. But if I'm going to help you than I need to know everything."

He sighed, then nodded. "Alright, but you need to understand that I am not the best person to give you that information. I don't even know it all."

"Then who does."

"The Commander." The second time he'd heard him reference this.

"Erwin?"

He nodded again. "Yes, Commander Erwin Smith. He's back at the base. It isn't all that far from here actually; if we leave now-and we fly-we should reach it by this time two days from now."

"I'm ready when you are, Eren." Anything she had to do for the sake of Humanity would be done.

For all of them to be called immediately into the Commander's office, even Reiner despite his injuries, they knew immediately that the matter at hand was more than serious. Their Commanding Officer was standing behind his desk with his back to them when they came in; this went on for quite a while without anyone saying a word before Marco finally worked up the courage to break the silence.

"U-Uh…Sir?"

"Sit down, all of you." Following the gruff order, they immediately seated themselves on any available furniture. "You failed?"

Silence for a moment before Jean stepped up to take charge. "Yes, Sir. We failed in our assigned mission. The trail ran cold in the ruins of a town known as Shiganshina, Sire. We split up to search it, only to have Mikasa disappear. We believe that she was killed, as we found evidence of Chimera attack."

"That may be true, but I think a far worse fate has likely befallen her."

"A worse fate, Sir." What could he possibly mean?

For a time their superior didn't speak. "She was not the first to bare the title of Humanity's Strongest Soldier. The first was a man by name of Lance Corporal Levi Ackerman. He was second in command to Scouting Legion Commander Erwin Smith."

"Scouting Legion, Sir?" Armin squeaked nervously. "I've never heard of such a regiment. None of us have."

"That's because they kept it secret, Arlert; a closely guarded one, even to this day. The best of the best, they both oversaw highly classified research operations into the origins of the Blight but lead campaigns outside of the walls in organized attempts to reclaim our lost lands from the Chimera. But we were fools to allow them the amount of autonomy that we did; Erwin soon proved himself to be both power hungry and unstable. He began to question the King's word and even attempt to undermine his rule. Then, after years of conspiring with a crazed physician and scientist by name of Grisha Yeager, managed to concoct some sort of…control syrum. He turned the entire Legion-his own men-into the Abberant Chimera that you found yourselves confronted with, enslaved them to his will using the syrum, and then unleashed a terror campaign of never before seen proportions. The Wings of Freedom became a symbol of oppression and fear; we tried to put a stop to their madness, but by the time we reached their former base it was deserted. And while we were distracted, they laid siege to the denizens of Wall Maria, unleashing the blight on the innocent and unsuspecting. We were left with no choice but to put our own people down to prevent the blight from spreading further. We hadn't heard of them in ten long years until they stole that vial from the lab in Sina. He'll likely seek to use it to turn Mikasa into another of his mindless slaves."

"We have to stop them!"

"Stop them?" he repeated. "We've been on the reactive side of this battle since the day that Maria fell; Erwin may be a mad man but he is no fool. The location of his current base is unknown to us, but knowing the way that he operates it is likely far away, possibly even outside the confines of Maria, and well protected.

"So that's it?" Jean repeated, looking as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "We just leave her with them? But don't we need her?"

"She may be our strongest, but she-just like every one of you-is still expendable." Shadis went and sat back behind his desk. "Recovering her, even if it were a possibility, would be no more than a side mission to be accomplished if the chance was presented and nothing else was to be done. Her fate, though regrettable, is decided. Is that clear to everyone of you?" His eyes flickered over them, resting dangerously on each for a moment before moving on. "If you, you're dismissed. But be prepared to be called upon at any moment; make no mistake that this is war."

"Yes, Sir. We understand." Disheartened by knowing better than to argue, Jean lead the others out of the door. They filtered away in opposite direction, so to the mess hall, some helping Reiner back to the infirmary, some to the library, others to God only knew where. Armin was left to walk in a sort of daze as he made his way up to the dorms and excavated a very old and well-worn book from the bottom of the little box containing his belongings. A journal containing notes and tightly locked, but that was all he knew; he'd never opened it before. "_Hey, Armin. Before I forget, my Dad told me to give this to you when he left. It was in a big hurry and he didn't say why, but he said that you'd know what to do with it when the time came. And not to open it until then." _He might have been able to believe the Commander's story if the reported 'madness' had been confined to the man named Erwin, but he'd known Grisha. Sure he was a bit excentric and more than a little bit secretive when it came to the exact nature of what he'd been doing down there in the basement of his home all those years ago, but he wasn't evil. Certainly wasn't crazy. And if there was one thing he was sure or it was that he would never assist anyone in unleashing the Blight when his family was in the path of the destruction it would cause. Something was definitely wrong here, and he was beginning to think that perhaps the journal would have the real truth of things inside it. Using the key that had come with it, he unlocked the leather bound tome and flipped it open. Out dropped a faded note on yellowing, age-cracked paper.

**Armin, **

**I give these notes to you hoping that they will be a beacon of truth in the darkness of the lies that they would see fit to fit securely over your eyes. If you are reading this I am likely dead and Maria has fallen. So it falls to you, Eren and Mikasa-if all three of you still live-to finish what was started and put a stop to what they would ultimately see done. Burn this note once you have read it. Contained on the journal's back page is the key that you will need for translation.**

_It's just as I suspected. We don't have all of the pieces here. _The only thing he could be entirely sure of at this point was that, whatever his superiors were trying to hide, nothing good could come of it.


	6. Awaiting Discord

Though she hadn't expected herself to be at any risk of Eren dropping her, Mikasa was still more than just a little bit glad to be back on solid ground. The Scouting Legion's barracks was an old abandoned castle further up in the same mountains where she had grown up in the earliest years of her childhood, the dark grey stone so overgrown with climbing ivy that it blended in with the grassy mountainside like a chameleon.

"Home sweet home!" Eren purred, gesturing grandly around at the building. "It looks small from here, but it's a lot bigger on the inside believe me. Oh, _and_ you're just in time for the annual Christmas party that Hanji always throws; it's tonight!" That might explain why the building was practically being garroted by gold and silver tinsel. "But that's later; I'll show you to my room…but you'd probably rather have your own? Oh, and we should probably get you a new uniform so that you can change out of the one that I accidently ruined. But I'm getting way ahead of myself; first thing is first, we need to take you to see Commander Erwin. Follow me." Wasting no time, Eren set off towards the entrance of the building leading her by the hand just as he had done when they were children. The halls, like the exterior, had been decked out in honor of the season with all of the decorations that they could ever be expected to hold without collapsing. Inside it was warm and smelled of wood smoke and the savory stew that was being cooked in the kitchens. "He's a great man and an old friend of my Father's, though I'd never heard of him until after Maria fell. They worked together in the effort of finding a possible cure for the Chimera affliction; they didn't find one, but they did manage to create the syrum that gave us back our human minds. And he took me in, raised me like his own, after Father died."

"What?" Mikasa pulled back against his hand, forcing him to stop. "Your father is dead too?"

He nodded. "Yeah; they wanted him dead because he was a political enemy of the walls. They attacked Shiganshina because they thought that he was there; when they found out he wasn't they locked me in a lab as bait. Apparently I saw him die, but I don't remember it because I hadn't had my mind restored to me yet." Eren resumed walking.

"I'm so sorry, Eren."

"It was ten years ago, Mika. I may not be over it, but I've come to terms." Stopping at one door in particular which, to her, didn't look like more than any of the others, he knocked politely.

"Come in." He pushed open the door and led the way into the office on the other side. Commander Erwin was an extremely tall and imposing man, towering over the top of his desk even well sitting down and with a standing height of well over six feet. His hair was short and blonde, his eyes razor sharp calculating and dark blue. His shoulders were broad, build powerful and hands large and calloused from battle; she got the distinct impression just looking at him that he was more than just an able fighter and not someone that she would care to engage even with her skillset. Seeing him in person it was not difficult at all to imagine him more than capable of keeping the Scouting Legion Chimera in line. On catching sight of Eren, he smiled.

"Eren, you've returned." His blue eyes shifted over to her. "And I see that Levi's tale of a woman with a red scarf yielded some truth, though the scarf in question seems to be absent."

Mikasa's hand flew of its own accord to her throat and she frowned; damn herself for thinking it was a good idea to leave that scarf behind. She'd worn it for so long that she felt cold and almost naked without it. Seeing this, Eren took her other hand and gently squeezed it. "This is Mikasa Ackerman, my adopted sister and one of my childhood best friends. She and Armin both escaped form Shinganshina after all. A relief."

The other nodded. "Most definitely; it will undoubtedly be good for you to have a measure of your old life back. And as she seems to be a soldier, she'll likely be of help to us in our efforts."

"If I might speak, Commander Sir?" Best to go with politeness until the time came for her to get out of there, after all honey tended to work better than vinegar for getting what she wanted. When Erwin inclined his head for her to continue she went on to say "Eren has told me a little bit about the Legion; rather cryptic information about how you have Humanity's true best interests in mind. If that is true, and the King does not, then it is my sworn duty as a soldier to turn my back on him to instead serve the interests of the people who I am sworn to protect. But, with all due respect Sir, in order to make that informed decision for myself I must first be informed of at least some of the details of exactly what it is that you're trying to do."

"Completely understandable; if you would have a seat," he indicated the chair set before his desk, "I'll explain everything to you, starting from the beginning." Mikasa crossed the room to sit in the indicated chair and Eren didn't miss a beat in seating himself on the floor beside her and resting his head against her leg. This, of course, was something she was well used to as both had often employed the other as a pillow throughout their childhood, so despite his rather cumbersome horns she paid this habit no mind. Erwin seemed somewhat bemused by the display, but said nothing on the matter and went on to begin his explanation.  
>"In the year 835 the King ordered it that the best of the best be assembled and mobilized into a secret, closely guarded regiment known as the Scouting Legion. This regiment was assembled-so it was claimed-for the purpose of highly classified research into the origins of the Chimera as well as expeditions outside of the walls to reclaim some of mankind's lost territory. This regiment was placed under my command, with both Levi-the previous holder of your current title-and a highly specialized and brilliant bio-chemist by name of Hanji Zoe along with a close, long-time friend of both hers and myself; Eren's father, Grisha, who, though not military, aided in our pursuits with his knowledge off the record. But it wasn't too much later that it began to become clear to us that the information and resources that we were supplying to the King was not serving to better mankind's situation. In reality, things were becoming worse; rather than using our research and discoveries for the bettering of life behind the walls and for eventual expansion beyond them, he used it instead to become more tyrannical still. Seeing this, I began to lose faith that what he had told us to be his motivations-and our purpose-was true. I admit that I began to openly question his competence and intentions, and that quickly made me enemies of the other regiments: Shadis, Pisces, Dok. I suspected that my colleagues and I might soon be in danger, so we withdrew to our own barracks and heightened our defenses near to the degree of paranoia. But even that was not enough, and the atrocity that would soon be unleashed on us by our own fellows was the likes of which no one could ever have predicted. Through sheer luck, or perhaps because he saw it coming when we did not, Grisha had called Hanji and I away for an urgent meeting during which he passed to us the fruition of his research; a serum that would restore a Chimera's human mind. It was well we were away that it happened; when we returned we found the old barracks swarming with the mindless afflicted that had once been my men. Luckily we had enough of the prototype serum on hand to restore them, but while we were preoccupied with that task not just Shiganshina but all of Wall Maria was destroyed. Not too much later we learned that they had taken Eren alive; bait for his father. They knew that he would come to save him, but they did not expect that he wouldn't be alone. Levi can be a very vengeful man, and, to say the least, he and his squad were not very happy about what had been done to them. But even their skills and rage was not enough. Eren, however, we managed to salvage. Small mercies."<p>

"Did he leave his research with you for you to continue in his stead?" the fact that Grisha could have been involved with any of this came as a surprise, but, she supposed, one never truly did know a person. As for the story she had just been given, she didn't know how much, if any of it, was the truth and didn't intend to believe a single word.

"No. He told me that he had left his notes in the hands of someone who would know to use them when the time came. Who that person is I've no idea."

"I see." Mikasa said, looking down at her lap for a moment until another thought occurred to her. "What was it, exactly, that your two…colleagues stole from the lab in Sina?"

"That? Contained within that vial was a form of the very same, highly concentrated Blight that was unleashed on Maria. We've no idea what they intended to with it but, fearing a repeat of the tragedy that has already occurred, we thought it best to remove it from their custody before their plans, whatever they were, could go through. Any other questions that you would like answered?"

"I have one," Eren piped up, raising his head. "I got a little…carried away and her uniform…kind of got destroyed…so…"

"Take her upstairs; we'll put her up in your room for tonight and see about making other arrangements in the morning. I'll have someone send up a new uniform for her before dinner."

"Thank you, Commander." Rising from the chair, Mikasa made a point of saluting her new 'commander' while studiously ignoring the part of her that reeled violently aware from the thought of even pretending to go along with a traitor to the King.

"My pleasure. You're both dismissed."

Eren lead her out of the office and then resumed his earlier gentle dragging through the halls. "So it looks like we'll be staying together tonight," he seemed very pleased with the idea. "Just like old times, huh? Hope it won't be awkward."

Mikasa couldn't help but smile. "I won't make it awkward if you don't."

He laughed. "That's a deal, though I should probably warn you that I sleep shirtless these days."

Oh God, please no. A shirtless Eren-even a shirtless _chimera_ Eren- was a distraction that she really didn't need. Luckily this arrangement would only be for one night…she hoped. "Why? It's the dead of winter on the top of a mountain; you'll freeze to death doing that!"

He shrugged. "That's why I keep a fire going; I have to sleep shirtless because, otherwise, my wings get so cramped up that I can't sleep at all."

That made a little bit more sense, she supposed. Having an extra pair of six-plus foot long appendages protruding from your back would make it a little bit difficult to comfortably keep a shirt on at all hours. It also explain the pair of slits in the fabric over his shoulder blades that she'd just now noticed. "Wings sound like a lot of work."

"That's understating things; the upkeep is a bitch! But it's all worth it when it comes time to take to the air." He told her happily. "And those of us blessed with them don't have to worry about heavy gear or the limits of open ground. But we tend to be used for scouting and supply drops and that sort of thing more than actual fighters." Supply drops. Disabling artillery fire. Transferring otherwise grounded Chimera on top of or over the walls. Within only a few minutes of being there Mikasa had already revealed the Scouting Legion to be a highly coordinated Logistical nightmare for their forces. Scaling a stone stair case and making a sharp right turn, he pushed open and door and went inside. "This is my room. I far from have mother's flare for decorating, but it's workable." White curtains hung over the windows. A book case stood in one corner beside a wooden desk and chair. A mirrored wardrobe stood against the wall across from the bed, which was dressed in a rather plain white comforter. A lamp stood on the small nightstand beside it. "What do you think?"

"It's very…clean." Eren had never been a slob by any means, but he'd been in the usual male habit of leaving belongings scattered and clothing strewn across the floor. So having everything exactly in its place and the surfaces spotless was new and more than a little bit strange.

Noticing this, he scratched the back of his head and chuckled nervously. "Well, Lance Corporal Levi is a little bit OCD about messes; in fact, he's a certified clean freak. So we all try to keep things up to snuff so he doesn't get upset. Because the only one who thinks it's fun when he's upset is Hanji." She'd experienced what she expected to be a variant form of 'Upset Levi' on the night of the Yuletide Ball and could see why. Taking another closer look at her surroundings, she noticed something else that she hadn't before; lying next to the bed was an acoustic guitar.

"Eren, since when have you played?"

"Eh…a few years? A lot has changed since we last saw each other Mika." Picking up the beautiful instrument, he strummed absently on the strings to produce a few clear notes and smiled to himself before setting it down on top of the bed, "Moblit, Hanji's second in command and personal assistant, taught me how a year or so after I arrived here. He had me work on my voice too, so I'm not tone deaf anymore."

Eren and musical were two words that she would not have previously put together in the same sentence, but now she wasn't so sure. "I'd love to hear something."

His grin grew bigger. "You will; I'm performing at the party tonight. You'll come won't you?"

"It's not as if there's all that much else to occupy my time here, Eren."

"What do you mean? Just because we're sitting on top of a mountain doesn't mean there's nothing to do! You could go to the library and read. Star gaze on the roof. Hunt. Fish. Hike. Snowball fights happen a lot when we get snow. Go ice skating or sledding if it's cold enough. Help Hanji out in the labs. Hell, _talking_ to Hanji will keep you entertained for hours. Hanging out with friends is another good time killer."

"All of my friends, aside from you, are back at the walls."

"You'll make new ones; we're very close here." Jumping a little bit at the unexpected voice, Mikasa turned to see the ginger-haired Chimera who had been amongst the group that had attacked him in the forest. Smiling and shifting the freshly laundered uniform she held onto one arm, she knocked on the door. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

"Petra!" Eren chirped happily. "Don't worry about it, you're not interrupting anything at all. This is my sister, Mikasa."

Her golden eyes widened slightly. "Sister? The one that you thought was dead?"

He nodded. "It would seem that we were both under the same mistaken impression of the other."

"I see." Returning her attention to Mikasa, she offered another warm smile. "Allow me to apologize for our first meeting; we certainly got off on the wrong foot."

"We were both just doing our jobs."

"I suppose that much is true." She replied. "My name is Petra, by the way. Petra Ral. Eren and I are both on Captain Levi's squad."

"She's also his girlfriend." He snickered. "Cats and dogs. Who would have thought?"

"Oh, Eren." Shaking her head at the younger's antics Petra handed her the uniform. "I was asked to deliver this so that you could change before dinner."

"Thank you." Excepting the folded uniform and shoes from the other, she turned to look at Eren who still sat on the bed in a manner that looked as if he had no intention of moving. "Do you…mind?"

"Huh?" clearly he hadn't been paying all that much attention, as he now blinked at her in confusion. "What do you mean 'do I mind'?"

"Eren, I think she'd like a little privacy to change. Why don't you come outside with me."

"Oh, right!" He immediately turned red as he realized what was going on. "S-Sorry Mikasa!" After that, he practically ran out of the room. Petra respectfully closed the door behind them both. Mikasa continued to stand there for a few moments before sighing and beginning to shuck off the layers of her damp, ruined uniform and replace it with the new one. She didn't know exactly how she felt about having the Wings of Freedom emblazoned on her back, but one thought that struck her as she looked into the mirror was that the forest green rain cloak still lying on the bed would suit her. Shaking that absurd and unwelcome thought off, she squared her shoulders and went to meet up with Eren and Petra who were waiting for her in the hallway.

"I thought you might be a size 4." The shorter ginger said approvingly. "Everything fits?"

"Yes, thank you."

"It looks good on you." And now it was her turn to blush as Eren took her hand again. "It's dinner time, and I don't know about you but I'm famished and it smells delicious!"

"That boy and food," she heard Petra mutter affectionately, shaking her head as she followed after them back down onto the ground floor and into the mess hall. The older woman parted ways with them to sit with her squad at the door, and as she crossed the room with Eren towards his chosen table Mikasa looked up to find Levi's unfriendly gaze resting menacingly like a weight upon her shoulders.

"That one," he growled to Erwin who was sitting to his left, "will be nothing but trouble for us."

"I know, Levi." The blonde informed him calmly. "She claims otherwise, but I am fully aware that she is an agent of the walls."

"What do we do about her?"

"Nothing."

"Excuse me!?"

Erwin's blue eyed gaze never once wavered even before his hissing and incredulous second in command. "We were all once in her shoes; it will take a personal experience of their hypocrisy and betrayal before we truly have her loyalty. And the best way to insure the she will encounter this is to allow her to continue unhindered."

"Allow her to steal back the vial? To give everything away? For Yeager to potentially end up in the cross hairs?" The raven sounded more than a little bit pissed off about the whole idea. "You promised Grisha that you'd look after his boy, and now you're talking about sacrificing Eren-a Chimera and an able fighter when it comes time that he pulls his head out of his ass-for a single human girl?"

"I plan on sacrificing no one, Levi." Erwin informed him. "She cares for him despite the curse, that much is obvious, but duty clouds her judgment; refuses to allow her to think of what she wants for herself. Her own actions will soon reveal to her a very stark truth; all will turn out as it should, as it must, if we allow the chips to fall where they may."

"I trust your judgment implicitly Erwin," he said, "but this is one plan that I'm not so sure about."


	7. Mistletoe

**I'm just going to say it here and now that this chapter did not turn out as well as I had hoped but what can you do? **

**The tradition of kissing under mistletoe originated in England; you would have to pull a berry off of the sprig before you could kiss someone and once all the berries were gone there could be no more kissing with the mistletoe.**

**The song Eren performs is ****_Where Butterflies Never Die_**** by Broken Iris**

Eren had left dinner early to, in his words, prepare some last minute things for his performance, so an hour later Mikasa was left to make her way down to the party alone. The mess hall had been totally transformed as if by magic; all of the tables were gone except for one, which had been weighted down with an enormous bowl of punch and multiple platters of holiday themed deserts, and a stage had been erected at the front of the room. There were so many red and green decorations and so much face snow piled in drifts against the walls that it looked like Frosty the Snowman had wandered in and exploded.

"Merry Christmas Eve, Mikasa!" Petra squealed happily, appearing out of nowhere beside her. Standing at Petra's right was Levi, glaring as usual and looking none-too-happy with the pair of bell-adorned antlers he'd been stuffed into.

"Oh, thank you Petra." She said politely. "Same to the both of you as well."

"Ba-humbug."

"Levi!" Petra laughed. "You're the only person I know who hates the holidays."

"It isn't the holidays that I hate. _Hanji_ during the holidays however-."

"Did someone call me?" the brunet scientist was practically yelling in an effort to make sure that she was heard over the white noise of the other conversations going on around the room. The look on the Lance Corporal's face in that moment reminded her of the old saying 'speak of the Devil and the Devil shall appear'. All that he said in answer was

"Fuck!"

"Oh, don't be like that Levi!" The white puff ball on the Santa hat she wore flopped down into her eyes. "I've been looking everywhere for my reindeer!"

"Oh hell no!"

"Come on!" She whined, grabbing his arm and beginning to drag the much shorter man along with her despite his attempts at digging his heels into the ground. "Eren will be performing in a few minutes and I want a front row view!"

Once they were gone she turned to Petra. "Those two don't see eye to eye, do they?"

"Believe it or not," the ginger said, "Levi and Hanji are actually close friends. He's…a very unique man. A relationship with him of any kind is…different."

"It must be hard from you. He seems like an unrepentant ass."

"A lot of people think that until they really get to know him; once you've gained his trust he's really very sweet, but it's next to impossible to pull anything over on him." She told her, then smirked slightly. "Don't tell him I told you this because he'd never admit it and would probably die of embarrassment, but he can be incredibly affectionate when we're alone. He cuddles like a lap dog."

"Well, even the alpha wolf has to have a soft side right Petra?"

"Eld!" Walking up to them was the blonde man form the forest. "Do you know what time Eren is supposed to be performing? I'm sure Mikasa is interested to know." She nudged the ravenette playfully, who turned her head away to hide the slight blush that had flamed across her cheeks.

"Should be any minute now," he said. "Didn't he perform at the beginning of the party last year too?"

"Yeah, he did." She mused. "Is he performing the same song again?"

"I don't know. But I do know you should both probably stay away from the punch table."

Mikasa raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Eld sighed. "You're new here, so you don't know how insane Hanji gets with parties. For starters, she spiked the punch with Vodka. For another, she had Mike and Moblit hang so much mistletoe over that damn table that it looks like bats in a cave. And I hope to God those berries don't fall into any of the food because they're poisonous."

She could understand the warning about the spiked punch, but Mistletoe? That was something that she had never heard of. Granted, of course, that in recent years she hadn't exactly had the heart to pay much attention to the decorations that went into festivities of any kind and the most exotic practice Carla and Grisha had ever engaged in was the Pickle in the tree that had provided hours of entertainment and a great deal of ornament destruction once Eren finally got annoyed enough to flip the tree over. "Um, what exactly is so bad about Mistletoe?"

The two stared at her for a moment. "You mean you've never heard about what traditionally happens underneath the mistletoe?"

"Well, apparently it's hung as a sort of good luck charm during the winter season, but what makes it so dangerous during parties like this one is that if you end up under it with someone you have to kiss them or its bad luck." Petra explained. "So it's a good idea to ask someone to get it for you if you ever decide you want something off that table."

"I see." Mikasa said with a nod. "Thanks for the warning."

"If you think this is bad wait until you see the Easter party. But that's a story for later in the year." The blonde shook his head. "We should head towards the stage; it's about the time that Eren will be performing and I'm sure you'll want to have a good view of his performance."

As the three started towards the stage the lights in the room dimmed and a spot light shone down on the stool which had, at some point between when she'd last seen it and when she hadn't been looking, had come to be occupied by Eren and his guitar. Squinting slightly against the sudden blinding glow, he smiled at the gathered crowd once his vision had adjusted.

"Well, I'll start this off by saying merry Chirstmas to all of you. And that I'm back…again. So I hope you brought your earplugs and that nothing in here is made of glass."

"Oh, come on Eren! You know you're good!" A voice called from somewhere in the back of the crowd.

"Thank you." He smiled. "Originally I was planning to do the same song as last year, but…a few days ago someone very important fell back into my life and so I wrote something different just now after dinner that I'd like to perform tonight instead. Now I know it's far from polished and it's definitely not Christmas, but as long as I'm not stepping on anyone's toes I don't think that really makes a difference. Anyway, let's get started." He took a moment to tune to instrument and adjust the strings, and then began to play.

_Float on,_

_To the painted skies._

_Where dreams will be unified,_

_As I,_

_Slip inside._

_Multiply humanity,_

_Harmonize insanity._

_Shedding light of remedy,_

_Pulling tight of clarity._

_Shattered glass,_

_In flower beds._

_Humanize,_

_Inhuman ends._

_It's all the same for the Dreamers,_

_It's all the same,_

_For us._

_Float on,_

_To the painted skies._

_Where dreams will be unified._

_As I'm swept inside,_

_Were butterflies-_

_Utilize surrenduring,_

_When silence forced,_

_To you it seems._

_Sterilize your mentality,_

_Compromise your reality._

_Restful mind,_

_And peaceful eyes._

_When sound is gone,_

_Than you will find-_

_It's all the same for the Dreamers,_

_It's all the same,_

_For us._

_Float on,_

_To the painted sky._

_Where dreams will be unified,_

_As I'm swept inside._

_Hold on,_

_To the painted sky._

_Where we will be unified,_

_As I stand inside._

_Where butterflies,_

_Never die._

_Will never die._

_Where butterflies-_

As the last chords faded away and the lights brightened to a round of well-deserved applause, Eren set his guitar down beside the stool and hopped down off the stage. Smiling, as usual, he sidled up to her.

"So, what did you think? Better than those carols when I was 12?"

Mikasa nodded. "Much better." She told him. "You wrote that? In an hour? That isn't something that I would have expected from you Eren."

He shrugged, walking beside her as they made their way through the crowd that had returned to talking amongst themselves and milling around. "Like I said when we first saw each other again, a lot has changed since we parted ways. Anything new with you Mika?"

"What do you mean by 'new'?"

"I don't know. Anything different. Something going on in your life now that wasn't when we last saw each other?"

"You mean other than the fact that I joined the military and went through years of training."

Eren nodded. "Yes, other than that. Like…is there anyone waiting for you back at those walls?"

"Armin, but he's just the same as when you left. Bookish as ever, and still just as much the strategist."

"Anyone other than Armin, though?" his oceanic eyes held a glint of something unfamiliar-was that jealousy?-as he almost stared her down. "I suppose that what I'm meaning to ask is, is there someone back at those walls who's as cold without you in their arms as I've been these past ten years?"

"Eren, the only relationship that I've had the time to be in is with my job!" Mikasa informed him firmly, then it dawned on her the implications of exactly what he'd just said. "Wait…what are you saying?"

They'd reached the doorway of the mess hall now; Eren leaned against the stone wall with a heavy sigh and lowered his eyes to the floor. "What am I saying?" he repeated. "Something that I should have said back when we were all together in Shiganshina. When we were all home, and human, before our lives were shattered. I don't know when it happened, but it _did_ happen. You're kind and beautiful and one of the strongest people that I have ever met. I admit that…back then I might have taken you just a little bit for granted, but the moment that your constant presence was taken from me…it felt like some enormous part of me just shriveled up and died. I've missed you so much; I don't want you to ever leave me again and…I guess that what I'm trying to say is that I love you Mikasa. I'm in love with you, and I think that I have been since the night that we first met."

"Eren." No. This couldn't be happened to her. She'd known full well what she had felt for him for years but Mikasa had never once dreamed of her feelings ever being returned. But why? Why now, when having to betray him so completely would only make it all that much harder for her to do her job. But she couldn't lie to him. She didn't _want_ to lie to him. She was going to be selfish, even if in the end that would mean she'd see him shatter in her hands like a porcelain doll. "I love you too. But I really think-."

"Shh." He gently quieted her, then removed something from behind his back and held it above their heads. "Oh, would you look at that?" Eren made a show of being surprised as he lowered it for closer inspection; a leafy sprig of some sort of plant with a single white berry on it. "It's mistletoe; with one berry left. Tis the season of miracles after all." Smiling, he plucked off the berry before dropping both it and the mistletoe to the floor and leaning down towards her. She couldn't let this happen. Had to stop him somehow. Find some sort of excuse, anything! But in that moment her mind went blank. Eren's lips were warm and soft as they met with hers, the kiss very chaste and innocent but at the same time carrying so much meaning. Her hands found their way to his chest, but rather that push him away she knotted her fingers in the fabric and pulled him closer feeling the hot wetness of tears beginning to trace down her face. What was she doing there? This wasn't what she wanted at all. She wanted to live her life with Eren. To stay with him forever despite what he'd become because now she knew the truth that it really was him and not just some monster wearing his face. So badly she wanted to be able to say 'to hell with the walls' and to take up the Wings of Freedom for solely selfish reasons. Wanted so badly to betray her oath. But she couldn't. And it was because she knew the fate that would befall him, a fate that she would not only have a hand in but be the mastermind of, that made her feel so defiled and sick. Seeing her tears, Eren pulled her closer into a comforting and familiar embrace. "Frohe Weinachten Mikasa. Merry Christmas."

If only he knew.


	8. Christmas Morning

"You're sure that you're going to be alright up here on your own, brat?"

Rolling his eyes, Eren sighed. "Yes, Captain Levi. With all due respect Sir, I'm not a child. And I'm more than capable of handling my sister on my own."

"I'm actually more worries about a fire breaking out in the kitchens while we're away so that there will no longer be any barracks to return to."

"Oh, leave him be shorty!" Hanji chided from her horse as Erwin laughed. "We've left the barracks in his care before. Eren is responsible enough."

"'Responsible' is debatable, but I will say that I'd sooner trust him to watch the barracks than you."

"Hey!" She wailed. "What is that supposed to mean!" As the situation dissolved into a sort of argument between the two, Eren turned to the Commander.

"If I may ask, Commander, where are the three of you off to on Christmas morning?"

"We are headed out to search for a possible location where a new base might be established." Erwin told him. "The forces of the walls do not know where we hide, but that does not guarantee that they won't one day find out. As such, it's best to be prepared for any eventuality."

"How long will you be gone?"

"A few days. Perhaps an entire week. We'll do our best to return as soon as possible, and in the mean-time we're trusting you to look after the base."

Eren nodded. "I'll make sure that everything continues as it should and look after everyone." He promised. "Be safe."

"Oh please, Yeager!" Levi scoffed. "Don't get all mushy, we'll be back."

"Moblit knows what he and Mike need to do in the lab, just make sure that he doesn't overstress himself and that Sawny and Bean don't escape from their cages this time."

"I'll do that." Eren promised, raising a hand to wave as the three of them left and set out down the mountain into the early morning. Eren, for his part, made his way back inside and up to his room to make sure he didn't miss his sister's reaction when she woke up to his little Christmas surprise. Sitting in the desk chair and crossing his legs, he waited. Mikasa was an early riser-he remembered that much-but he himself had awoken before the sun to see his superiors off and so it was about an hour of waiting later before he saw her finally stir and open her eyes to be confronted with the neatly wrapped box. For a moment she just stared at it without reacting, still half-asleep and probably not entirely aware of what she was looking at. Then she sat up quickly, picked up the box and looked at him in surprise.

"Eren…what-?"

"Merry Christmas." Leaving the chair in favor of the edge of the bed, he seated himself happily beside her. "Open it." She hesitated for a moment further before undoing the ribbon, ripping off the paper and opening the box. Inside was a red scarf. "I know that it is not the same one, but it still has the same meaning if I'm the one who gives it to you right?" Picking it up he wrapped it gently around her neck, half of it left to flop over her head; he was still just as terrible at wrapping scarves. "It's warm, right?" feeling very clever, he grinned at her. "Do you remember what I told you that night? That I'd keep wrapping this scarf around you as many times as I need to."

"Where did you get this?" It looked new, unworn as if it had never left its box. But he couldn't have possibly gone into the walls and stolen one; that would take days of travel and he hadn't once left.

"I've had it for a while." Petra had knitted it for him a few months after his arrival there in an attempt to cheer him up and make him more comfortable, but it had reminded him so much of her that it had had the opposite effect and made him more depressed. "I thought that you would have more use for it than I would."

"Thank you." She told him, fixing the scarf into something more passable. "It'll be nice to have this back." Even if it wasn't the same one.

"So…Christmas morning. Our first spent together in ten years. Our superiors are gone, and won't be back for up to a week. So, what do you want to do?"

One thing was for sure, if she was going to recover that sample she needed to somehow get into the lab. "Could you give me a tour? It would be nice to know where everything is."

"Sure thing. After that we could go for a hike; it's beautiful around here. And, after it gets dark, how about some hot chocolate?"

Mikasa smiled at him. "That sounds wonderful."

"Well," Eren stood up from the bed, "I'll head down and make us both breakfast so that you can have some privacy to change back into your uniform. Meet me in the mess hall once you're ready. Once we're finished, we'll see about that tour." He left the room and set out down the hallway, leaving Mikasa to change out of the old shirt that he had leant her to sleep in and into her uniform. She found him in the kitchen wielding a large frying pan in an attempt to fry eggs while staying for the most part out of the way of the kitchen staff.

"You can cook too?"

He snickered. "I can fry eggs, boil water and turn on the oven. If that means that I can cook, then yes I can cook." Shifting the enormous iron skillet slightly to the side, he narrowed his eyes at the contents. "It should be ready in about five minutes. I'll bring it out to you when it is done; I think they'd appreciate having as few people in the kitchen as possible." Getting the message Mikasa left the kitchen and went to sit at one of the tables. A few minutes later Eren emerged as well with two plates of eggs and fresh bread. "It's Christmas feast but it'll pass won't it?"

"It looks better than most of what we get back in the walls; the bread is fresh this time."

"The King allowed his personal guard and best soldiers to eat stale bread?"

"Resources are limited."

"If that's what you want to believe." Picking up his fork, Eren started shoveling eggs into his mouth. "That reminds me, before he and the others left Commander Erwin arranged for you to have your own room and Petra is working on finding you somethings that you can wear other than your uniform." Suddenly grinning with no perceivable reason, he sighed. "Wow, I remember when you used to wear dresses."

"So do I." Mikasa told him. "I've found that I like the uniform better. A lot less restraining."

Having cleared his plate, Eren rolled his eyes. "Well, after all of this-the war-is over and all of the Chimera have been restored if not cured you won't have to worry about being in any situation where you'll have to worry about your clothes holding you back. I'm completely on board with whatever makes you happy, but I don't think the priest would go along with you wearing your military uniform to our wedding." Pain flashed through her, but Mikasa managed to keep her expression in check to that he didn't notice. "You know, there's been something that I've wanted to ask you."

"What?" Whatever it was it would come as a welcome distraction from the cloud-9 that he was currently living on; the bubble that she would soon have to pop.

Cocking his head to one side and blinking at her, Eren reached out and gently began to play with a strand of her silky black hair. "How long have you had short hair? It used to be so long. It looks different; good, but different."

"My hair?" Wires, latches and cables; all sorts of things on which long hair could become caught. "I cut it during training; long hair doesn't mix very well with frequent 3DM gear."

"I guess that explains why a lot of the women wear their hair up." He said. "You finished?" she nodded. "I'll be right back." Taking both plates, he got to his feet and disappeared back into the kitchen. When he rejoined her at the table they both set out back into the hallways so that Eren could give her the tour that she had asked for. Outside were the stables, filled with hey and the smell of numerous horses. He took her around to the offices and her new room and the library but she only half-paid attention until they finally came to the one place that she had really wanted to case; the lab. Inside were tables stuffed with countless vials of unfamiliar un-named chemicals and other such things alongside micro-scopes and other scientific instruments. Journals filled with lab notes were strewn in all directions. At the back of the lab were two, steel cages containing a pair of Chimera; the cages were labeled **Sawny** and **Bean**. "This is Hanji's lab; she spends most of her time in here trying to better understand the Chimera and continuing in attempts to find a cure for the blight. Sawny and Bean are her pets; she keeps them as a natural Chimera would be for research purposes so keep all hands and feet and limbs outside of the bars."

"Mike! For the millionth time, please! If you're going to feed them make sure that you lock the cage doors afterwards! The last time you forgot, they both got out and started running through the head quarters and Mrs. Zoe almost got bitten and the Lance Corporal threatened to put them down and it was an all around disaster!" Turning her head in the direction of the shouting Mikasa caught sight of a pair of Chimera in lab coats one of who appeared more than a little bit stressed out and frazzled and the other who just looked bored.

"Would you calm down; I didn't lock them yet because I wasn't done in there. I have to declaw them again because their talons grew back."

"Those two are Mike and Moblit. Moblit, as I explained to you before, is Hanji's second in command and personal assistant. As such, his stress level is constantly through the roof because he has to keep her out of trouble." Eren explained. "Mike is another one of her lab techs."

"Oh, look whose here; it's Eren." By this point it was rather obvious to her that Mike was gunning for any way to distract the other and it seemed to work as the two came over.

"Has left yet?" Moblit asked him.

Eren nodded. "Yeah, she left about an hour or so ago with Levi and the Commander. They'll all be back by week's end at the latest." Catching sight of the other one, Mike, bending down towards her she stiffened; to Mikasa's total surprise and shock he sniffed her. Seeing her reaction, Eren snickered and patted her hand. "It's alright, he does that. It's a…Mike thing."

"The scent of a person doesn't lie, Eren, even if they do." The other replied. "She smells like a rose."

"Now you're talking like you're blind; of _course_ she does!"

"A rose has thorns, Yeager. You may want to be a little bit careful with this one."

At this Mikasa stiffened once again by Eren was too busy bristling to notice. "Clearly there is something wrong with your sniffer! I've known Mika almost all my life, so I think that I would know if she was planning anything that would harm me!" That said he turned to Moblit. "Where is the sample that Hanji and Levi brought in from Sina? I've heard so much about it that it's got me curious."

"Oh, it's right over here." Beginning to lead them to the other side of the lab Moblit again looked at Mike and said "_please_ lock the cages"

"You're back on that already? I thought I'd be able to have at least 10 minutes before you got on me again." The other grumbled. "If it'll calm you down, I'll lock the cages. Do you want to watch to make sure I do it right?"

"That won't be necessary." The table where he stopped was on the opposite side of the lab; he typed in a quick code into a keypad-one that Mikasa was sure to commit to memory-and pulled out the vial inside. Contained within the vial was a small black mass.

"It's so tiny." Mikasa said.

"It looks like a rock." Eren observed.

"It's the solidified form of a highly concentrated modified Blight. Thus far we have no idea what they were planning to do with it but given enough time we should be able to figure it out." Moblit told them. "Our lab is the best that there is; the Scouting Legion is responsible for most of what is known about the Chimera by the walls, and since our exile of sorts we have only learned more."

"More?" anything that she could hope to learn, no matter how seemingly insignificant, may save her life-or cost her it-soon enough. This was a lesson that she had learned quite quickly on the field of battle. "Like what." The lab tech opened his mouth to answer but before he could a copious amount of swearing and a loud bang issued from the back of the lab.

"Shit! Sawny! Bean! Bad Chimera! Stop that!"

"I got it!" Eren told them quickly, jogging over towards Mike who was trying to hold the cage doors shut against a pair of angry Chimera. As the brunet grabbed the bars to help the other, Mikasa thought she might be beginning to get an idea of why Moblit's stress level was still so high with his squad leader absent.

"Well, for one thing," he finally began to answer her question, "we've recently learned that a Chimera's bite is not the only way that the virus can be spread. Transmission percentages through direct blood-to-saliva contact is actually rather low at only 75%; a human can be bitten by a Chimera and, 1/4th of the time, will not become infected. Blood-to-blood transmission is another way that the Blight can be spread, and the percentages for that are slightly higher at 90%. And there is a 100% transmission rate from…other fluids. Need I say more?"

"No, thank you. I understand the implications." Luckily she had enough control to keep herself from blushing as Eren, successful in aiding Mike in finally locking the cages, trotted back over.

"So, did you get what you wanted out of this tour or was there something else you wanted to see?" he asked with a happy smile. "If you're finished, that is."

She did her best to smile at him. "Yes, we're finished. And the tour was nice; you did a good job."

He beamed immediately, all too happy at the prospect of receiving praise from her; regardless of how insignificant it was, he seemed to revel in it. "Ready for that hike?" Right, the hike. It had snowed the night prior and was likely even colder than before so she was far from looking forward to it, but it could prove to be another opportunity to scout out her situation. Seeming to sense her hesitation he laughed. "Don't worry about the cold, I'm sure that we will be able to find something warm for you to wear." With that the pair were once again making their way through the halls towards Eren's bedroom. Once there the brunet wasted no time in diving into the closet. "Now, let's see if there's a coat somewhere in here that you can borrow."

Only a few days had passed since he'd remembered the journal he'd been given all those years before, but already he'd begun to piece together something that was more than just a little bit disturbing. He only had just over a handful of pieces translated from Grisha's code thus far, but already the picture Eren's father's words had begun to paint didn't quite fit with what their superior had told them, rather like trying to fit a circular block into a star shaped hole. It would go in, but it wasn't quite right. So intrigued, so wrapped up in the hidden secrets of what the government within the walls was really hiding was he that he hadn't bothered to emerge from his room, Christmas morning aside. So when the knock came on his door, Armin jumped. Getting up he went to answer it and found a most unexpected sight on the other side.

"Jean." The ash blonde had never come to see him before; they were colleagues sure but were far from close, so his reason for coming to see him out of the blue was a little bit bizarre. "Is something the matter?"

"The others are starting to wonder what the hell it is that you're doing hold up in here; you practically locked yourself in your room after Shadis came out with all that shit." The other informed him curtly. "But I'm not here about that; you could be hiding the entire Scouting Legion in there for all that I care."

"Then why are you here?"

The other sighed. "The Commander has given me orders to head out to some little outrider camp that they've managed to establish up in some mountain range in Wall Maria. On paper the reason that I am going up there is to oversee the completion of a quarrying operation that's been going on for quite a few years now so that they can finally get enough stone to finish the wall that they've been building around the castle and Stohess. But I've heard rumors through the grapevine that the Scouting Legion base might be somewhere nearby. I need to know if I should go against my orders and head in alone to try and save her. If it's even worth it."

He wanted advice. "Jean, going in alone will only get you torn to pieces. And that's if the rumors are even true." Armin told him. "Mikasa is resourceful and strong; she's likely either already escaped or has them convinced that she is on their side. If she is out there she will realize soon enough that you are nearby. Mikasa will come to see you herself."

After a moment, Jean nodded. "You're right. For now, I'll stick to what I'm told." A moment further passed where he didn't leave; his amber eyes fell on the journal still open on Armin's desk. "What are you doing in here anyway? Inventing the next 'uncrackable' military code?"

"N-No." He said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Just…a little bit of reading. Puzzles always have been a hobby of mine, and that was left to me by my…grandfather."

"One of the few things that you took with you?"

Armin nodded. "Yes. I took that book. Mikasa took her scarf. And those stood to be our sole reminders of our former life. I just got around to remembering mine, and Mikasa seems to have voluntarily relinquished hers. To have moved on."

"I don't see how anyone could ever truly move on from what you went through."

"Like I said, Mikasa is stronger than most." And if he was right about the identity of the Chimera that had likely taken her, the one that they had chase from their camp the night prior to her disappearance, she probably no longer needed the comfort of the reminder of Eren that the scarf had provided. "What time are you leaving?"

"Now, actually. I…just thought that I should put it by you." Jean told him. "I don't doubt that Erwin and his Scouting Legion are insane, but what Shadis told us didn't exactly sit right with me and I could tell from the look on your face that it didn't sit well with you either." That was putting it rather lightly. "I'm going to head out so that I won't be late. Good luck with your puzzle, and do me a favor; keep a look out for anything else that's 'strange'."

"I will. Be careful." As the other soldier walked out Armin couldn't help but think of is sudden assignment as more than a little bit odd. Why, in the middle of what they had repeatedly been assured was open war, were their superiors so concerned about putting a swift end to a long-running quarrying operation? And he couldn't help but wonder if this mysterious fourth wall that had indeed been in construction for a period of many years was intrinsically linked to the secret conspiracy that Grisha had apparently uncovered years before.

By the end of his impromptu closet excavation it became apparent that Eren only had one coat, which he had given to her without a second thought, and was now standing on the porch beside her wearing nothing but his uniform jacket which was far from any definition of warm. The snow lay thick on the ground even as still more fell from the sky and the sun was blotted out by thick grey clouds.

"Eren," Mikasa's voice was muffled slightly behind the scarf she'd wrapped around the lower half of her face. "What about you? You'll freeze."

"I'll be fine, don't worry. The cold never bothered me any way." Waving off her concern with his usual almost flippant assurance, he held out his warm calloused hand for her to take. "Shall we?" He lead her off of the porch and out across the open yard towards the trees. The little white flakes spiraled down around them, settling in his brown hair and landing on the ground with soft kissing sounds as the snow crunched crisply beneath their feet. The trees were all completely bare now, their dark brown husks reaching up to claw at the sky. Stones, black and smooth as volcanic glass, poked up from the pure white layer. A chilling wind blew, making her shiver slightly as the old forest creaked and groaned around them, the dead undergrowth-shriveled and browned-rattling and whispering amongst itself. She didn't entirely know what to say to him and he didn't offer any conversation, and so they walked in silence simply enjoyed each other's presence. They hiked for miles-maybe three, maybe five-down the mountains a ways until they ended up top of a bluff with a beautiful, expansive view that went on for miles. Slopping hills and dark barked trees and…was that what she thought it was?

"That smoke trail over there. What is it from?"

"Smoke trail?" Looking in the indicated direction he frowned slightly. "Oh, that? That's the Blackstone Quarry. They started digging out the stone there _years_ ago and after Maria fell they managed to maintain their hold on it. No idea what they could possibly want the stone for; we've always assumed it to be used to maintain the walls and repair any damage that may occur to them over the years and as such we've left it alone. Anyway, there's a soldier's camp there now too. To protect the workers from the potential of Chimera attack." Three hours down the mountain on foot form the barracks. Maybe another two miles after that from where they were standing. A trip that was easy enough to make in one night without anyone noticing that she was gone, provided that she was unable to find some other excuse to get away. The only problem it presented was the damned cliff.

"And you're not at all worried by them being so close?" he just shrugged.

"Not with this cliff in the way; the shale is so unstable that 3DM gear can't be used to scale it." Eren informed her. "There is one way up and two ways down; that path over there," he indicated a very tiny and terrifying just to look at deer trail, "and the faster way that ends in splat." She definitely couldn't image that a fall from that height to end in anything but death. It was much windier up on the exposed cliff face, and Mikasa soon found herself shivering despite the coat she wore and it wasn't long before Eren noticed. "You cold?" not really wanting to admit weakness, she reluctantly nodded. Sitting down on a nearby rock, he motioned her over. "Come here." Mikasa didn't think anything of walking over to him, but it definitely came as a surprise when Eren pulled her down onto his lap and wrapped his wings around them both in a downy blanket. The feathers were soft and warm; she could feel the muscles of his chest against her back and his heartbeat against her own. Resting his head on her shoulder, he nuzzled her neck and sighed. "There isn't anything more than I could ask for than to have you back Mika. But I do wish Armin was here too. That the 'three musketeers' could be together again."

"We still might." It was what he wanted to hear, she was sure. He made a sound of ascent and then went silent again. They continued to sit together for a time until it began to get dark. "Eren, we should probably be getting back."

"Yeah, you're right." He said, allowing her to get to her feet and then doing the same. "Not as if we could watch the sun set with so many clouds anyway. We'll fly back; if we walk, it'll be far too dark and we might get lost." She allowed him to lift her into his strong arms and, for a second time, felt the powerful downdrafts of his wings as he raised them both into the chill night air. The flurries whirled around them as they flew at dizzying speeds; where walking had taken hours, flying saw them back at the Scouting Legion barracks within half an hour. Eren lead her up to the library and quickly built a large fire in the stone hearth. "I'll go and make that cocoa; stay here and warm up." He walked out and was gone for maybe ten minutes. By the time he returned with two mugs of steaming hot chocolate her black hair was dripping with the amount of snow that had melted in it. Handing her one cup, he sat down next to her and rested his arm across her shoulders. "So, how are you liking the Scouts so far?"

"It isn't as if I have seen all of that much of the Scouting Legion in action." Mikasa reminded him quietly, clutching her warm cup tightly. "But from what I have seen it's…different. More rugged. And that it's less of a regiment and more of a family. There certainly seems to be a trust between its members that even my old team didn't have."

"You said it; we're all family. So don't doubt that you have a place here." Yawning, he nestled himself deeper into the cushions of the couch and took a drink. "Dinner should be ready in about 40 minutes if you're hungry, but I don't think I'm going to go tonight. I'm still good from breakfast, and more than a little bit tired out from today's excursion."

"I might eat later," she told him. "For a moment…I'd rather stay here with you." She was going to hurt him so badly in the end, and she knew it, but was it really so wrong to be a little bit selfish while she had him with her? It would be a few days still before she could enact her forming plan, and likely a few more still before anything could be done about it by the forces within the walls, so she'd make a point of enjoying herself while she could.


	9. Echoes of Betrayal

Chapter 9 – Echoes of Betrayal

Jean had arrived at the Blackstone Quarry three hours before and already considered his presence there to be completely pointless. The Quarry, on top of being well fortified and protected, hadn't once in all its years been attacked by Chimera despite the occasional sightings of the Scouting Legion's winged banner amidst the thick trees. The nearby soldier's encampment was manned by mostly members of the Garrison Regiment, who whittled away their countless hours of excess time up on that unforgiving mountain drinking and gambling. And ever since his arrival they'd made a new game out of 'poke fun at the member of the King's Guard from the palace in Sina sent to sit on his ass to watch over rocks after a major fuck up', which was precisely what he was doing at the moment, actually. If there was ever a way to make someone feel completely useless, an assignment like this one was it. God how he wished that, rather than following orders, he'd ridden off instead on an armored warhorse to find the Legion's damnable fox hole. That, even at this moment, he was painting his blades in the blood of his twisted enemies. He could imagine the great final battle that would ensue; not against Erwin, no, he had absolutely no interest in the fate that their Commander met. The so called 'mad man' wasn't the one he'd chosen to call his sworn enemy. The sound of his blades clashing with the green-eyed demon's claws; the sparks that would fly. The sweet taste of victory when its cooling corpse lay at his feet. How she'd thank him for saving her, might even run into his arms. And he'd finally have Mikasa for his own, just as he'd always wanted since the moment he had first lain eyes on her. Finally prove to her that he was worth it. _If she doesn't show up pretty damn soon I may yet follow through with my original plan._ Sighing harshly through his nose, he rested his chin on his hand and returned to watching the miners gouge slabs of dark stonefrom the earth sure that the sound of their pick axes striking the hard granite surface would be something that would haunt his dreams for many years to come.

She'd bided her time for long enough; it was high time to put the first measure of her plan into action. Mikasa located Eren easily enough in the Commander's office, doing his best to attend to some of the more minor of Erwin's task in his absence; he looked up on hearing the door open and smiled, taking in the fact that she wore the full uniform with rain cloak included.

"Something the matter, Mikasa?"

"Yes, actually." She informed him, closing the door quietly before leaning back against it. "I'm sure that it's probably nothing, but all the same such loose ends make me nervous, Eren. I'd like your permission, since you're currently acting for the Commander, to take one of the horses and head down to Blackrock Quarry. I want to take a closer look at things; perhaps deduce what they're really up to."

"I'm sure that it's nothing," he told her. "Why the sudden vested interest?"

"Not knowing something in a time of war such as this one-no matter how insignificant that information might at one moment seem to be-can lead to a total and devastating loss." She replied starkly. "Trust me on this, Eren. I'll be careful; I never have been reckless."

"How long do you think you'll be gone if I do let you do this?"

"No more than two days, I promise you."

"Call me crazy, but I don't like the thought of having you out of my sight for that long."

Now was definitely **not** the time for him to start acting overprotective. "I can handle myself."

"I'm not saying that you can't."

"You said earlier that you would go along with whatever makes me happy; letting me do this would make me happy, Eren."

For a moment he simply stared at her as if shocked she would go so far as to actually play that card, then he sighed and shook his head. "Alright, if this is really what you want to do than you can do it but I honestly think that what you're engaging in is no more than a wild goose chase."

"As I can tell you'd rather me be back as soon as possible, I'll set out right away." Yes, the sooner the better that she could scout of the soldier's camp and put all of this behind her. Steal a carrier pidgeon to carry a message to the walls or else, if she was exceedingly lucky, perhaps stumble across someone who she knew and would recognize her to carry the message themselves. She had to control herself not to run to the stables and once astride a randomly selected horse took off into the trees at a gallop in the same direction that they had gone on their hike. It took maybe two hours for her to reach the cliff face, and almost another full hour after that to make the death defying descent down the deer trail to the bottom of the cliff. The Quarry was a good deal further than she had originally estimated it to be at five miles rather than two, so by the time she finally reached it the sun was sinking fast and the overseers were closing down the operation for the day. And, to her complete shock and almost immeasurable relief, a very familiar someone was manning the worker's retreat from duty. _Jean is here? Thank God; this means I don't have to wait around in hopes that I'll be able to commandeer a bird._ But there was still a great deal of waiting yet to be done on her part before she could safely approach him without risking being seen be someone who she couldn't trust to keep her situation under wraps. So she stayed crouched above their heads amongst the shadowed canopy as she followed the little caravan back to the camp and then waited until night fully fell and all of the soldiers who weren't on watch retreated into their tents to sleep. Only then did she dare the venture down. It was simple enough for her to skirt the mostly drunk patrollers by staying out of the reach of the pools of light cast by their lanterns, and soon enough she had managed to find her way to the tent that she was looking for. She found Jean asleep inside, still mostly dressed with his jacket cast carelessly aside and his boots unlaced beside the bed, the sheets all but pulled over his head to keep out the persistent chill. Wasting no time, Mikasa awoke him rather rudely by placing her hand over his mouth; his eyes flew open and he jerked slightly in surprise, shock and astonishment registering in the amber orbs as he caught sight of her. She motioned once for silence and then released him. He sat up immediately.

"So you _are_ still alive and Human, by the look of it at least. When we saw all of the blood we feared the worst."

"Yes, I'm alive. But we don't have the time for idle conversation Jean. And before you even ask, no. I'm not going back to the walls until I finish this." Mikasa informed him curtly. He opened his mouth to say something else, but she didn't give him the chance. "Listen to me, I need you to deliver a message to the walls immediately; can you do that? Leave tonight? It's urgent, you _must _understand that."

"I'll leave right away-the sooner that we can get this resolved and bring you home the better-but first you have to tell me exactly what this message is that I'm delivering."

Pulling a folded slip of paper from her pocket, she handed it to him. "This is a map to the location of my parent's old cabin. Tell Shadis to send the best of the higher ups here in two day's time. I can hand them the stolen sample, the location of the Legion's base and everything that I've learned of their plans. On top of that I can also provide them with a hostage with which to lure Erwin, who is currently away from the base, out of hiding. A Chimera who he's all but raised for the past ten years, and the son of Grisha Yeager."

"Grisha? You mean the crazy doctor who invented the control syrum?"

"Yes, the 'crazy doctor'…and my adoptive father."

_'His name was Eren Yeager…after he died, she never was the same.'_ How the hell had he not managed to put it together before? And if it was true that it was Grisha's family that had taken her in, didn't that mean the Chimera she was turning over to their mercy was her 'beloved' brother? Jean had known that her past had left her numb and badly broken, but he'd never once imagined before this that it might have made her cruel as well. Then again, he supposed, a person wasn't who they used to be once they were infected.

"Will you do this for me or not?" Her voice had taken on a jagged tone, sharp and insistent with its usual commanding air but at the same time concealing a shadow of pain. She kept her grey eyes averted enough that, in the darkness, he couldn't see them and thus had no idea what she might be feeling.

"Yeah, I'll do it." He reassured her. "I'll leave now; it'll take almost a full day to get back to the walls riding non-stop, but how long will it take for them to make it to this cabin from the walls? And how long will it take you to get there?"

"I'll be back at the barracks by early morning. They'll manage to reach the cabin just in time to put everything in place is they leave within an hour of receiving the message. For my part, I'll have a few hours; travel time is cut in half by flying."

"Flying?"

"Eren has wings, and I have the perfect ruse to get him out there." Stiffening slightly at a noise from outside, she turned to look over her shoulder. "I've been here for long enough; I don't know how long that I can leave my horse without risking it will be discovered."

"Mikasa, wait!"

"I'll see you back at the walls, Jean." Pulling the cloak's hood up over her face, she darted out of the tent and disappeared into the night leaving his sitting still in shock. The night sky had cleared somewhat, but by God's own mercy the moon didn't break through until after she'd left the camp behind. The silvery light spilling down from the heaven's above made the dark grey stone look eerie and seemed to infest the quarry with the dark shapes of shadow creatures. All together, it was rather disconcerting and up until the point where she was once more on top of the tiny treacherous path back up the cliff face she felt strangely exposed and almost as if some unseen person was following her. Deep down Mikasa knew that she was being paranoid but it was still a most uncomfortable sensation to go through, and so she was more than grateful to shake it off on returning safely to the barracks. The flight would take a little over a day, and so taking a handful of hours to sleep, steal the sample from the lab and convince Eren to make the journey would end up with her cutting it extremely close but by this point she didn't have a choice. All that she could do was hope that Jean would follow through with passing on the message and that their superiors would go along with it. Otherwise she'd be left high and dry as a traitor in hostile territory, and though she doubted Eren would ever raise a hand against her she doubted that the reactions of the leaders of the Legion-especially Levi-would be quite so mild. Three hours of sleep later and she forced herself awake, then slunk down into the lab. Moblit was nowhere to be seen and Mike was passed out asleep at one of the microscopes. Carefully, on silent footsteps, Mikasa picked her way across the lab to the safe in which she knew the vial to be secured and typed in the code as she remembered it, careful to keep an eye on both the sleeping man and the door to insure that she would not be interrupted. Slipping the successfully pilfered vial into the breast pocket of her uniform, she left the lab and went to find Eren. He was still in Erwin's office and, much like Mike, had fallen asleep hunched over the desk. It was exactly 7:00 am when she gently woke him with a hand on his shoulder. He mumbled and stirred before opening his eyes to look up at her.

"You're back." Sleepy, but still as happy as ever. "What did you find at the Quarry; whatever it was, I hope that it satisfied your curiosity."

She sighed and shook her head. "A whole bunch of nothing; you were right, it was a wild goose chase. At most they were moiling for gold, but even that I doubt."

"I warned you that it was a waste of your time." Yawning, he raised his head. "Hope it laid some of your doubts to rest though."

"That's debatable." She told him, watching as Eren stretched his limbs in a rather cat-like manner. "Tired?"

"A little; I was up late last night trying to figure out how to do some paper work that Mike brought up at around midnight that Levi normally takes care of." Sighing, he admitted "I finally just gave up."

"They'll be back in a few more days, won't they? Just leave it for him to take care of; from what I've learned of that OCD bastard he'd probably get pissed at you for doing it wrong anyway."

"I guess that's true," he mused. "Did you come here looking for me because I missed breakfast? Or was it because I wasn't in bed?"

"Actually…it was because I wanted to ask you for one more favor." She had his rapt attention immediately. "I know that it's a long trip but I was wondering if you would be willing to take me back down to the mountain to my parent's cabin. I know that there isn't really much left of it, but…"

"With what happened to you there, I can't blame you for wanting to revisit it. Let some Demons go. You didn't really get a chance to do that last time." He said. "When did you want to leave? After dinner, or-?"

"Now, actually." To cover up the sudden sharpness of her voice Mikasa quickly added "the sooner the better."

"Of course." He nodded. "Just let me get my jacket."

They'd left close to nightfall the day before and arrived at about that same time almost two days later. She could see the little clearing on top of one of the mountain's foothills where the little cabin where she'd spent her early childhood stood. She couldn't see anyone, nor any signs that anyone had been there in a long time, so she could only hope that the Calvary was in place. Eren alighted softly in the front yard, the feathers of his wings rustling quietly as he folded them behind his back and together they made their way into the cabin. Warmer than outside and just as destroyed as she remembered it. Stopping in the middle of the floor, Eren looked down at the rust colored stains and grimaced.

"God, I can't even imagine how horrible it must have been for you. When Dad and I arrived here they were already dead…in a way, it was almost our fault. Those monsters only got in because your parents were expecting a visit from us."

"Don't say stupid things like that; expecting visitors or not expecting visitors, my father wouldn't have thought twice of opening the door to anyone who knocked. Our lives were so peaceful back then; we never once believed that such monsters would ever come knocking on our door."

"We put those bastards down, you and I. Small mercies. 9 years old, and murderers. 9 years old and bonded in the blood of our enemies, if not related by it." Turning to look at her he shrugged. "So, do you want me to wait outside or something? Give you a little time alone?"

"No, Eren." She replied sadly, unable to look at him. Not wanting to have to see the betrayal and fear that was sure to soon be written across his face. "I'm sorry. But I'm afraid that you won't be going anywhere."

Hearing the creak of unfamiliar footsteps, Eren whirled around with a snarl. There, in the doorway armed with a rifle, was a man who she immediately recognized as one of the lieutenants of the Military Police. Seeing him, his hackles rose and a deep growl built in the back of his throat. The quiet sound of what she swiftly realized was a dart gun firing went off and one of the darts hit him in the chest. With a rage filled shrieking hiss he launched himself at the man, knocking him backwards out of the door and pinning him to the ground, wings flapping madly in an attempt to cuff him upside the head as they wrestled for the gun. Two more shots went off, and then Eren sagged off of him to lay unconscious as the tranquilizer finally took effect. Once he was downed more soldiers emerged from their hiding places in the brush; a good number of them converged around his limp form to secure him for transport as a figure she quickly recognized as Shadis approached her. Mikasa immediately snapped into a crisp salute. "Commander, as promised I delivered the Legion hostage and successfully recovered the stolen artifact as promised." Removing the vial from her pocket, she handed it over to him.

"Good work Ackerman. Now, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come quietly."

"'Come quietly', Sir?" Then she saw them; felt the cold metal cuffs being locked tight around her thin wrist. "Mikasa Ackerman, I hereby relieve you of your duty as a soldier, release you from your oath to his majesty the King and place you under arrest for the crime of high treason against the crown."


	10. The Dark that Follows

**Ok so I really hope the review about refreshing the story but nothing happening was a request for another update and not an actual problem with the page. Thank you very much for all of the reviews everyone; it always helps to know people are actually reading these stories:3**

**Rape/non-con and torture warnings**

As she sat bound and gagged and tied to a wooden stool in a tiny, dank dark jail cell the only thing that she could do was sit and wander just how in the hell she could have possibly been so stupid. She'd sacrificed everything that mattered to her, and the gamble in the end had been a bust of the worst imaginable kind. The vial-whatever the hell it actually was aside, it was now a shoo-in that it would be used for ill-had been returned to its original owners via her massive mistake. And on top of that, and worst of all, she had delivered Eren-an escaped former prisoner of Sina's lab who had no more use to them now that Grisha was dead and her own brother-back onto their non-existent mercy. If she were any less rational, or perhaps any more delusional as the case may have been, she would have immediately begun to pray that it had all been nothing more than some horrible nightmare, but she knew better and she never been had the type of person that anyone would classify as 'religious'. Mikasa knew full well what they hoped to do by having her arrested; she knew that they knew that now that she had been in contact with the Scouts, now that she knew the real truth, they couldn't hope to continue onwards without her eventually realizing things were not right and raising a hand to stop them. And so they were seeking to sweep her under the rug. To make her disappear. She only hoped that Eren's connection to Erwin would keep him alive long enough for them to save him. As for herself…she'd betrayed them. Even if Eren protested and fought, the others wouldn't hesitate to leave her behind in the custody of the walls. She knew that she would be there for a very long time. At the very least until they decided to do away with her and arranged for a private execution and that could take months. And they were hardly about to leave her alone to rot, though in all honesty she would rather they would. No, they'd question her. Torture her, most likely. Possibly even to death. But she had already come to the conclusion the moment she'd been shackled that, no matter what was done to her, she would never give up the Scouts. Because as long as Commander Erwin and the Wings of Freedom were out there, there was still a chance that the King's plan-whatever it was-would be stopped. There were no windows in that dungeon beneath the castle, so she had no way of knowing what time of day that it was or how long she had been there, but it felt like hours. Finally, she heard footsteps coming towards her cell from the hallway; soon enough, an unfamiliar face appeared outside her door, a man in somewhere around his mid-thirties. It was rather clear from his haughty expression, and the feeling that he was looking down on her, that he was both high ranking and possessed of a very high opinion of himself. It was also clear that he was a member of the M.P, from the patch on his uniform. So this was the warden. And if the stories that she had heard about him were true, this would not be good for her.

"So this is the great Mikasa Ackerman, current holder of the title 'Humanity's Strongest'. I've heard so much about you. That you came from Trost, driven by a hatred for the afflicted which burned as brightly as the sun. That you had a natural talent for everything that was ever asked of you in the academy and that even as a new recruit you were worth an entire battalion by yourself. They described you as a natural born leader, a lioness, a Goddess of War. And I've wanted to meet you for quite a while." The cell door shrieked on its unoiled hinges as he pushed it open, walking over to her and removing the gag so that she could speak and then tracing the back of his hand along her cheek; she flinched away. "You certainly have the beauty to match your prowess."

"You make me sick!" She snarled at him, curling her nose at the choking scent of sweat and too-much cologne as she pulled back her lip into the best imitation of a Chimera's snarl that she could manage.

"Oh, there's no need to be nasty. Especially considering that I'm only here to help you."

Mikasa almost choked on her own mirthless, bladed laugh. "And why should I believe that?"

"I can understand completely that you're more than just a little bit…indignant over your current situation and his majesty extends you his most sincere of apologies. It's only temporary; take it as a precaution."

"A precaution?" that was ridiculous.

"Yes, a precaution. You see, this isn't really an imprisonment it's more of a quarantine. To make sure that you haven't been brainwashed by that terrorist or infected by his…pets." Her only response was a dry snort. "The King has personally asked that I extend you this generous offer, though you had best keep in mind before you answer the fact that this is the only time such a thing will be on the table; if you would divulge the location of the Legion's base _and_ everything you know about their plans, then I'll untie you. You can walk out of this cell right now, go back to your room and clean yourself up in time for dinner. But, if you refuse, it will be released to the public at large that you are a traitor. And enemy of the walls. And, I promise you, you will be treated accordingly."

"And why, might I ask, would he even bother with an offer of clemency?"

"Didn't you know? You always have been the King's favorite soldier."

_ "Don't be stupid; she's exotic. The last of her kind. A beauty like this will fetch a mint at auction; the King himself might even buy her."_ A shudder passed down her spine as she remembered the long ago words of the men who had attacked her and the stark reality that, this time, Eren wasn't going to come and save her. No one was. She couldn't even save herself, because there was no way out; she was doomed. But damn herself to hell if she didn't take as many of the bastards down with her as she possibly could.

"Well, what's your answer?"

"Go to hell; I'll never tell you, or the King, anything!"

_Bam!_ She hadn't even seen it coming, but the warden's back hand nearly lifted her out of the stool on which she'd been propped and left a stinging red mark on her cheek. "Let's try that just one more time, shall we? What is your answer?"

"You have my answer; do what you want with me, but it will never change!"

_Whack!_ This time the strike did send her crashing to the floor with the chaotic clattering of wood as the stool bounced wildly against the uneven stone floor. It hurt badly and would surely leave a bruise, but she refused to make a sound. Refused to give her tormentor the satisfaction of seeing her in pain. "The records say that you're from Trost, but the truth has only just recently come out! You're nothing but a Shiganshina rat who managed to somehow escape her rightful execution and is badly in need of a lesson on just where her place falls in the pecking order! And if you want to keep that little blonde friend of yours from being dragged into all of this along with you, you'll comply!"

_Armin!_ She'd already handed Eren over on a silver platter, and now they'd threaten to harm the only other person in the world she truly cared about? But she couldn't tell them; the purpose of the Scouts remaining free was far bigger than any one person. Bigger than her. She'd been prepared to make sacrifices from the onset of this. So she'd say nothing. Even if it meant going through the pain of having harm brought to her loved ones and knowing it was her fault. Even if this wasn't the first time that a monster of a man had loomed over her helpless form with lust, and something soul-less, in his eyes. She knew what was coming but was powerless to stop it as he pinned her down and ripped at her clothing like a wild animal, tearing the fabric and sending the little button scattering across the floor. The dungeon floor was cold as ice, this uneven edge digging into her legs and back as she cast around at the walls and ceiling and the walls, desperate for anything to distract herself from what was happening as rough hands bruised her soft flesh. Tears pricked her eyes but she bit down on her cries, knowing that no one would come to help her even if they were heard. Even as he forced himself inside her she kept silent; it was the worst pain she'd ever felt. She didn't resist, didn't make a sound. Just lay there until he finished and left. Only once she was alone in the cold cell with blood and fluids dripping down her thighs did she let herself break. Her clothing was in shreds and hanging off her, her pants yanked down around her knees, and with her hands still bound behind her she had no way of fixing them. Only her scarf remained in place, but now even that provided no comfort. She felt filthy. Used and violated. Her body ached all over from the bone-deep cold and the bruised that formed and then darkened and then began to yellow and fade away as time went on. But she had to remember what she was fighting for. Had to keep reminding herself why her will could not be allowed to crumble. Even as she was left in the suffocating silence of total darkness, broken only by the far off occasional dripping of water for days without anything to eat or drink. Her captor would return from time to time, sometimes to taunt her, sometimes to ask if she was broken, sometimes just to stare at her hunched and silent form. He always received the same answer. But this time when he came to her cage door there was a sadistic light in her eyes that made her very nervous. "You awake in there, beautiful?" She didn't answer. "What's wrong? Cat got your tongue? Well, I've got a surprise for you." Turning over his shoulder he barked at what was presumably another soldier standing out of her line of sight, "bring in the beast!" Shock and horror flooded through her like ice water had been injected into her veins the moment that they dragged him, bowed and unresisting, in front of the doors of her cell. To have a conscious and un-drugged Eren acting so submissive was not a good sign. As she got a closer look at him she saw that he'd been beaten; his wings were bound painfully behind his back with leather ties, one of his horns had been snapped off at the base to leave a jagged bloody stump behind, his eyes were blackened and his caramel skin was pockmarked with cuts and bruises. Over his face they had secured a metal mask which kept him from biting, and from talking. He looked to be physically and mentally exhausted and only partially aware of where he was, but as his eyes fell on here-saw her bloody, half-dressed state and put together what must have happened in his mind-shock and molten fury flashed in his eyes and he hissed. "What's wrong big fella, did I encroach on your territory? Was she your mate?" Eren tried to throw himself at the warden with a muffled snarl but the other soldiers held him back. "Keep the muzzle on him, boys. We've already had to put down the three lab techs that he's bitten."

"Eren." Her voice was dry and barely audible from disuse; he huffed in response and looked away. "Eren, I'm sorry. Look at me, please!" He ignored her.

"Oh, look at that. A lover's spat. Don't you know that it's rude to ignore a lady when she's speaking to you!" Eren glared at him. "So unrepentant. And just when they told us you'd been broken." Another hiss. "Beat him!" One of the others lifted a wooden cane and slammed it into the back of Eren's knees, forcing him onto the ground. She couldn't help but flinch at his muffled groan. "You care about him, don't you?"

"Why does it make any difference to you?"

"Hit him again." Another brutal strike and groan. "Answer our questions to our satisfaction, or they'll take the cane to this bastard's hide! Continue disobeying and the cane will be dispensed of in favor of something much _much_ worse. And you will watch every last moment of the agony he goes through."

"Stop it! If you want information than torture me; let Eren go!"

"Eren, so that's its name?" he sneered. "Unfortunately, torturing you has already been proven fruitless. Where is Erwin?"

"I don't know."

"You're lying!"

"I'm not! Please, you must believe me!" _Whack!_

"What do you know of the Scouting Legion's plans and movement."

"I don't know anything!" _Whack!_ Blood was trickling sluggishly down from his busted temple, coating the left half of his face.

"Where is their base?"

"I'm not telling you anything!" _Whack! Whack! Whack! Snap!_ The wooden cane was brought down on his back with such force that it snapped. The two soldiers tossed the useless cane away and fell on him with their fists instead, knocking Eren to the ground. A rain of steal toed boots and fists pummeled him; one removed his belt and began to lash him with it. Bones broke and skin tore and soon the scent of blood began to fill the air; they paid no mind to his cries, not stopping until he'd been reduced to a quivering ball on the floor.

"Take it back to the lab; as long as they're quick about dissecting him come morning, the thing should still be alive for the first few cuts." The two men dragged Eren out by the arms, leaving a bloody smear mark on the ground; their vicious ringleader followed them out. Once they were gone Mikasa curled in around herself to try and keep out some of the cold, put her head between her knees and prayed it would be over soon.

He'd never had a problem with Marco, but his near constant presence over the past few days was really starting to become ridiculous. He felt as if he were under some sort of house arrest and the freckled raven had been stationed as his guard, though Marco-friendly as ever-took pains not to make it seem that way. And, luckily enough, he was respectful enough of his business to allow him to continue his translations of Grisha's journal all but completely undisturbed. But with his constant watching it made it impossible for him to find some way to get down to the dungeons to see their newest prisoners and perhaps find a way to get them out, but now that he had managed to decipher the entire contents of the journal Armin knew that he had to get himself Eren and Mikasa out of the walls and back to the Legion as quickly as possible. And that would call for some deception on his part. Honest by nature he had never been a very believable liar, so for his purposes tonight he'd ben employing a twisted truth instead.

"Marco?" the other looked up from the book he had been reading. "Could you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what's up?"

"On the shelf in the back of my closet there's a codex book; I threw it up there a while back thinking I wouldn't need it again, but I need it now to finish this project and…how embarrassing…I'm not tall enough to reach it. Could you grab it for me?"

"Yeah, sure thing." Closing the book and setting it aside, Marco got up from where he'd been sitting on the edge of the other's bed and went to the closet. Once his back was turned, Armin wasted no time in crossing the room, closing the closet door and securely locking it from the outside. "Ah! Armin, let me out!"

"I'm sorry Marco, but I can't do that." He really did feel bad about preying on the other's trust, but there was simply nothing to be done about it now. "I've learned a few things that are very disturbing, and I can't sit by any longer. I'm taking Mikasa and Eren both back to the Scouts."

"You're crazy; you'd betray us? Don't do this, Armin! Please don't do something you'll regret, just let me out!" But that wasn't about to sway him; gathering up his things-his gear, some lock picks, a medical kit and the journal-he left the room and struck out into the halls.

Jean and the others didn't know his name, but they recognized the officer immediately as the M.P's prison warden. Described as a sadist and a wholly cruel man, it did not bode well at all that he was currently making a very swift paced bee-line directly for them.

"Incoming," he grumbled, and the little group immediately adjusted their postures into what could pass as a salute.

"Where is Arlert?" The warden demanded the moment that he reached them. "I require his…aid in further attempts to knock some sense back into your deserter former colleague!"

They looked at each other in silence for a moment before Reiner spoke up. "He should be in his room; as per Commander Shadis' orders, Bodt was watching him."

"Come along; I may need some assistance in more than simply finding the right room." That they doubted. The blonde fought with his brain rather than his fists, and where he was more than capable of talking them in circles putting up a physical resistance was about as likely as pigs suddenly developing the ability to fly. They ascended the castle stairs to the barracks floor and made their way down the hall to the bedroom in question. A candle was burning on the cluttered desk, but neither the blonde nor the raven were anywhere to be seen.

"They're gone." Ymir noted helpfully. "Both of them."

Just then an enormous bang sounded from the closet, making Krista shriek in fright.

"It's a ghost!" Sasha squealed, paling.

"That's no ghost," Annie observed, unlocking the thumb turn lock to allow the captive raven out, "it's Bodt; Armin must have somehow tricked him into walking into his closet and then locked him in it."

"Where did he go?" The M.P demanded.

"The dungeons! He's trying to set both Mikasa and that Chimera free!"


	11. Point Break

**More story, but first let me answer my most recent review: I understand completely why you feel the way that you do; honestly I myself do not like non-con and as such was hesitant to write it but in the end it is required for the eventual "Happy Ending". Mikasa and Eren will have their happily ever after come the end of the story, but that end is quite a ways away yet, and it will get a little darker still before the light shows up at the end of the title due to Eren's inability to be delicate in the wake of being crossed, even by someone he cares for.**

**Translations at end**

The silence had lasted for so long by this point that she actually felt as if it were sinking into her skin; even the dripping of water had stopped. Then, out of nowhere, quiet hurried footsteps came running towards her cell; lighter and far more hesitant than the warden's had been. With a mix of curiosity and caution, she raised her head to peer up at who the new visitor to her cell could possibly be and was met with something that was as much of a surprise as it was a relief.

"Armin?!" She was hallucinating, she had to be. He couldn't possibly be coming to rescue her, could he?

"Are you alright? What…what did he do to you?"

"N-Nothing. I'm fine." Her voice shook slightly when she spoke despite her best attempts to hold it steady. "Just…get me out of here."

"Give me a second to pick this lock." A few minutes later she heard the sound of the latch flicking open as the lock on her prison released itself. Once inside of her cell, Armin used his knife to carefully cut her bonds allowing her to sit up and collect herself into something more presentable. "Can you walk?"

"I told you, I'm fine. Eren is worse off than me; they beat him badly a few hours ago and are planning to kill him come sunrise! He's being held in the lab!"

"I know. That, everything they've done up until now and everything that they plan to do in the future."

"You uncovered it?" she'd always known that Armin was a genius, it had been obvious from the first day Eren had introduced the two, but this was an amazing feat even for him. Her wrists were red raw from the coarse fibers of the too-tight rope that had bound her, sticky with clear fluid and beads of blood; almost subconsciously, she began to rub gently at the raw angry flesh in an attempt to ease the stinging pain somewhat. "How? I doubt that anything to do with it is a matter of public record; one would practically have to strangle it out of the King."

"I don't know exactly how it was that Eren's father managed to uncover their plot, but he compiled every sorted detail of it and left it to me in this." Producing a leather-bound journal from within the folds of his jacket, he showed it to her. "The words were encoded, so for a long time I was doing more translating than analyzing but when I finally put it all together I was shocked and horrified by the reality of what I found. They are the ones who unleashed the Blight on Wall Maria. But their reasoning wasn't to get rid of their political enemies-that was just a side benefit-it was a test run."

"A test run?" she repeated. "A test run for what?"

"For a similar 'disaster' but on a much greater scale. There's a reason that they're building that wall around the Castle and Stohess District."

They meant to somehow unleash the concentrated Blight on the civilian population of Rose and Sina? "Please tell me you're joking."

"I wish I was; the King is going to take his nobles and most loyal soldiers into the safety of the new wall. And then they're going to hook this up to a reactor on the top of the castle and it's Shiganshina all over again."

"We need to get to Erwin with this information immediately! It may already be too late, but we have to try!"

"It isn't; we still have months left until the wall is completed. At least until then, we're safe." He reminded her. "For now we need to focus on getting out of here alive. Like you said, Eren is injured. And our little jail break won't go unnoticed forever."

That was true; caught up in the shock of the moment she'd almost completely forgotten the reality of their current situation. Her senses were diminished by her long imprisonment, mind racing, fear-fear for Eren and his state, not for herself-thudding through her veins. "You're right. We need to leave." Standing up after so long had passed with her legs all but frozen in place was a difficult and most decidedly painful task, but she managed it. She could tell from the look on his face, the pity in his eyes, that he could guess-by putting together the clues provided by what he had seen-what had happened to her at the warden's hands. But Mikasa was determined to continue onwards, as she always had, for the moment at least, as if nothing had happened at all. She'd address it later; for now, Eren was her #1 priority. "Please tell me that you have more than one pair of blades with you."

"Right here," handing over his currently armed ones, he pulled a second set of handles from his belt and fitted his remaining blades into those. "Unfortunately I didn't have a chance to grab another set of gear; I was all but under arrest myself and had to lock Marco in the closet to get out of there."

"It's fine; you've done more than enough already. I have no doubt that, after this, we'll both owe you our lives." She assured him. "All the same, Eren is surely too injured to fly himself over the walls, let alone cart the both of us along with him. We _need_ another set of gear." Her grey eyes flashed. "And I think I have a good idea of precisely where we can get one."

"Mikasa," it was clear that he sensed the dangerous intentions currently racing around in her head. "What are you planning to do?"

"They've pushed me to point break, Armin. I'm a cornered animal with nothing left to loose but for my life, and that never held much meaning to me to begin with." Came her grim and stony-faced reply. "I'm planning to do only what I have to."

They ran through the castle halls as quickly as their feet would carry them, pushing anyone who didn't get clear fast enough out of their way with no regard to their standing or complaint, all the while with the warden howling and snarling about 'urgent military business'. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, they reached the dungeons below the castle. The cell door was wide open, inside was nothing but cut bonds and their prisoner-and the one who had set her free-was nowhere to be seen.

"Shit!" The members of her former team weren't entirely sold on the idea that she was a traitor, but all of them were well aware that it pushed or cornered she was more dangerous than any Chimera and they had no idea what she might do. What they did know was what she was capable of. "They're gone!"

"But where would they go?" Krista piped up. "Hannes's house; he raised them, didn't he? There's no where they could go in the walls where we won't eventually find them, and they don't have the means to scale them."

"Mikasa Ackerman would never run and hide," Annie reminded them starkly. "She'll stand and fight. This is far from over."

"Sir!" A voice shrieked from behind them; seconds later an M.P recruit came tumbling down the stairs to land at their feet. "Sir! There's been a mur-a murder! On the streets; a soldier butchered, his gear stolen!"

"Take us to the scene!" More running, this time through the streets; it was raining again-winter always had been a rainy season but this storm in particular was one of the fiercest they'd seen in years-in a driving downpour of thick chilling drops that tumbled down from the heaven's above to bounce back up off the bloodstained pavement where they shattered like glass into a thousand different smaller drops. Rent skin revealed deep-red muscle and the glint of white bone. It was brutal, excessive, far more than what would have been necessary to be fatal and motivated by a barely with-strained but well focused fury. It was clear that this death had both been very fast and very painful, the killing done with military-issue twin blades.

"Doesn't look like the poor bastard had much time to fight." Ymir said grimly. "She's off the handle; I'm not sure we're capable of stopping her, or that it's a good idea for us to even try."

"Lack of time aside, he definitely managed to grab her at least once." Crouching down, Reiner removed the clump of dark hair and red string from the body's clenched fist. "We can say for sure that Mikasa is responsible for this. But, like Ymir said, I'm not sold that it's a good idea to confront her without calling in the big guns."

"We don't have the time for that; she's headed for Sina's lab! We cannot allow her to take that vial back, or to release her brother!" There was no further conversation; though made more than just a little bit nervous by now, it had become obvious that protesting would get them nowhere fast and waiting around wasn't even on the table. The lab was across town; on foot it took ten minutes to reach it. Alarms were already going off, signs of a break in were evident and more blood and bodies were strewn about like fallen trees.

"We have no idea what kind of contaminates might have been released in her; we should put some of these on." Marco indicated the masks that had fallen from the ceiling after one of the lab techs, now dead, had pulled the emergency switch.

"Sticking together will only waste time; split up and head to the maximum security containment facility on the second floor!"

They filed off alone, dispersing in all directions down the many darkened hallways lit only by the occasional flash of eerie red light as the haunting swell of the alarms broke the silence. Vials were smashed, furniture overturned, equipment destroyed; wholesale destruction everywhere they looked. Cage doors hung wide open and Chimera were swarming everywhere, luckily distracted enough by the carnage that they managed to sneak passed them without too much issue. Finally, at the end of it all, the group found their way to reconvene at the heart of the lab on the second story and found that the responsible party for it all currently had her back turned and didn't appear to have noticed them. She stood by, armed and covered head to toe in blood, her clothing in shreds and short hair lanky and tangled, watching as Armin feverishly attempted to pick the high-tech lock on the cage of a badly wounded male Chimera.

"Beeilen Armin! Mit jene Warnungen geht aus, wir haben nicht viel Zeit!"

"Das weiß ich, und ich versuche! Aber das Schloss ist zarter als die auf Ihrem Gefängnis war, und es gibt nicht ein Auslöseknopf für sie. Ich sollte es in ein paar Sekunden haben." Just then the lock clicked and whirred and the cage door swung open. Before he could even get to his feet Mikasa had rushed into the cage and swiftly removed the tin bite-mask with tender care.

"Eren, sind Sie bewusste? Können Sie mich hören?" it glared at her in silent answer, anger and hurt clearly portrayed in its green eyes. They shifted slightly over her shoulder a second later and directly met with Jean's.

"Wir haben Unternehmens." She moved with near blinding speed at his warning: a few seconds later Mikasa was on her feet and once more out of the cage.

"Get those shackles off of him, Armin! I'll hold them off!"

"Don't be a fool Ackerman! You may be 'Humanity's Strongest' but there's no way that you could take on all of us at once." Her captor sneered. "After this massacre, you're bound for death no matter what you do. Surrender, and I'll make it somewhat painless."

"I don't stand a chance? Is that what you said?" her voice was a dead emotionless monotone that was more than just a little bit terrifying. "Maybe I don't. Maybe I do. The whole of life is a battle; if I win I live, if I lose I die. And the only way to win is to fight."

"Oh boy, here it comes." Reiner grumbled, bracing himself for her inevitable attack in a combat stance.

"Don't do this, Mikasa! Don't make this any harder on yourself!" Jean pleaded with her. "Just surrender; there must be some way that we can still work this out."

"Don't try and get involved, any of you. If you interfere with me, I won't hesitate a moment in killing you if it means protecting all the family that I have left. And as for you," her flaming grey eyes fell like a terrifying weight on the Warden's shoulders, "scum, if you thought you could get away with what you did to me you were _very_ wrong!"

"Mikasa, come on! I've got the shackles free; we need to get out of here!" But his cry was something that she ignored, focused entirely on the man who had thought it was his right to torture her so completely. Connie boldly started forwards as if intending to put himself between them, but went skittering away in mortal terror when she cast him a scalding glance; her pupils were blown out, making her eyes look completely black like a demon's.

"You thought that my humiliation at your hands would come without a price? You thought yourself safe in that you would never have to worry for a moment about the slightest possibility of retribution?" Somehow in the face of what had to be fear incarnate he stood his ground, even as she started to walk towards him.

"What's wrong, you upset because I didn't stick around to enjoy the afterglow with you? Admit it; I didn't do anything to you that you weren't asking for!" He jeered. "What do you want? Me to bend over so that you can return to favor?"

Control was something she had prided herself on for many years. Control gained by taking hold of her emotions in a strangle hold and stuffing them into a very small bottle before screwing on the lid as tightly as it would go. Control over what she allowed the world to see. Control over what she allowed herself to feel. Honed for years in training. Tempered in battle. Bottled up and heated and shaken until it had morphed into an explosive cocktail primed to explode, and the only thing keeping it from doing so was a single cork. In recent years that cork had begun to wobble and shift, but before coming back to the walls she had convinced herself that the cracks in its seal had been repaired. But now, in the wake of all that had happened to her, in the face of his goading, that cork came free. The dam finally broke, and a tide of molten rage spilled out in a conflagrating tide. She lost her temper. Snapped, completely; it felt as if her sanity had suddenly fled her. Her blood was liquid fire, her mind filled with an intoxicating red haze of blood lust, her heart constricted by shadows giving maddening whispers in her ears calling her to murder. To mutilate. To kill for the sake of killing alone. To hurt him. Make him suffer for everything he'd done to her. Everything he'd done to Eren. Everything he'd threatened to do to those she cared about. Something must have changed in her expression, because the previously self-assured warden had gone pale as death and begun to cower as if he'd seen the face of the Devil himself. He knew that he had pushed too far; that she really was going to go through with it and that there was no stopping her. That there would be no hesitation. No regret. But there would be enjoyment. Satisfaction. She heard Armin call to her again as if distantly and through deep water as she raised her blades to at last put an end to the heathen that cowered before her, but they flew out of her white-knuckled grasp in surprise when she was seized from behind in a powerful grip and lifting off the ground. Mikasa cried out in fury, kicking and scratching and struggling with every ounce of the strength that she had left to her even as his claws scored her skin and his blood joined the layer of scarlet that already coated her like paint. With how injured he was it was hard to believe that he could even stand on his own, let alone cover enough ground to reach her fast enough to stop her. With a grunt and an all mighty heave Eren managed to sling her across his back, paying no mind to her continued squirming as he grabbed Armin by his straps and hoisted him into the air. Then, before any of the others-still stunned by her fantastic and very brutal snap-could react he took a running start and launched the three of them into the window.

"**Beeilen Armin! Mit jene Warnungen geht aus, wir haben nicht viel Zeit!" – Hurry Armin, with those alarms going off we don't have much time.**

**Das weiß ich, und ich versuche! Aber das Schloss ist zarter als die auf Ihrem Gefängnis war, und es gibt nicht ein Auslöseknopf für sie. Ich sollte es in ein paar Sekunden haben – I know that and I'm trying, but this lock is more delicate than yours was and there's not a release lever for it. I should have it in just a few more seconds.**

**Eren, sind Sie bewusste? Können Sie mich hören?" – Eren, are you conscious? Can you hear me?**

**Wir haben Unternehmens – We have company.**


	12. Midnight Ride

The thin glass shattered with an earsplitting crash as he rammed into it with all the hesitation of a charging bull, badly maiming his right shoulder as they smashed through and sending gigantic deadly shards raining down onto the stone streets below that were, thankfully, deserted by that late and rain-soaked hour. They, too, went plummeting towards the ground for a very painful landing until, just before they collided with the glass-strewn earth, Eren's wings snapped open and he managed to drag their combined weight skywards against the snarling wind. The further away from their captors that they got the more her mind cleared and the harder the realization that he was in terrible shape became to ignore. The wounds on his body were revealed to be far worse up close than they had seemed through the bars of the cell, and even then they had looked dire. Blood-not the usual dark blood but the bright cherry red kind that only came from grievous injuries-was pouring from his wounds which only ripped wider with each stroke of his tattered wings. She could feel the shards of his broken bones shifting about beneath her weight, as well as the small pained gasps that he himself didn't seem to realize he was making. Eren was running on pure adrenaline, but all three of them were all too well aware that that couldn't last forever. Even as this dawned on her his flight pattern began to grow erratic, his vision closing in around him as blood loss and the gusting winds began to take their toll. Then, just as they cleared the top of Wall Rose, he began rapidly losing altitude.

"C-Can't! …Too weak!" His voice was breathless from exertion but what he said next-though barely audible-was what really scared her. "Swim." His grip went slack and his wings went limp and the next thing either of them knew they were spiraling out of the sky to connect painfully with the dark, cold, foul smelling water of a pond close to 200 feet below them with more force than was necessary to break bones. Momentarily stunned by the impact the pair managed to recover and fight to the surface, breaking back out into the winter air just in time to see Eren tumble from the heaven's like a shot pheasant to land amidst of copse of trees just over a mile away.

"Eren!" He was already so badly injured. And a fall from that height onto solid ground with that much speed behind him left the two of them with little realistic hope that he could have possibly survived. "_Eren!"_ The water soaked into her clothes, waterlogging her and dragging her body down, and the muddy bottom sucked at her feet as if the pond didn't want to let her go. Mikasa flailed desperately through the water, feeling her limbs go numb until she lost all sensation in her dislocated shoulder and sprained ankle. Finally reaching the banks she took off running into the dark forest with Armin right behind. Not caring that she was so tired that she could barely move, that she was tripping and stumbling and ramming into anything and everything that happened to be in her way; that it was near pitch black and impossible to see through the constant deluge, or that she could barely breathe. She ran until she finally reached the place where he had fallen. It looked as if a meteor had smashed into the earth; a furrow almost five feet deep had been dug into the damp soil surrounded by snapped, uprooted and damaged trees. At the end of the trail, in a large crater in the ground, was Eren. His wings were shattered, one folded beneath him like crumpled paper and the other hanging on by threads of flesh; bones were jutting out of his skin at all angles and he didn't seem to be moving. Horrified, she stopped in her tracks. This couldn't possibly be how it ended, could it?

"Mikasa!" Armin had leapt into the hole in her stead and now knelt at Eren's side. "He's still alive! Help me get him out of this crater before it floods!" Alive? How in God's name was he alive; how could anyone possibly survive through the injuries he had? She hesitated, reluctant to move. Was it true? Or would she find him cold and dead once she climbed down. And what if moving him just broke his body more? "_Mikasa!"_ Finally snapping back to reality, she forced her body to move and leapt down into the hole alongside him to aid in lifting their badly wounded companion out of the imminent danger of drowning.

"Can you do anything for him? You brought a medic kit with you, didn't you?"

"I did, but I lost it when we fell out of the sky. The journal, too."

"Then you have to help me carry him; we need to get him back to the Legion's barracks!"

"Mikasa," his voice was sad and very quiet. "We can't go anywhere until this storm abates, and without immediate professional aid to stabilize him he won't make it to sunrise."

"So, what are you saying? That we sit here and do nothing? Watch him bleed to death?!"

"I'm sorry. But we don't have any other options."

The driving rain was cold and blinding, and combining it with powerful winds made conditions almost impossible; it was a fight to maintain altitude and a desperate battle to keep from being blown away by the zypherous winds, but they all kept trying. Because this wasn't just any missing person's recovery; this was one of their own. Landing almost ended in his being smashed against the rocks by a particularly harsh gust, but none-the-less Gunther eventually managed it in relative safety to address his superior.

"Captain!" He had to shout over the howling of the weather to catch the other's attention; clinging on to the saddle of his horse for dear life, Levi lifted his head to look over at him. "Visibility is shot; none of us can see a damn thing from the height we're flying at, and dropping any lower isn't safe!"

"Keep trying!" He called back. "These aren't just missing soldiers, they're missing scouts. One of them is a member of our own squad and Ackerman has, I'm sure, learned her lesson by now. And the walls are in uproar; they're no longer behind them, but they can't have possibly gone far! We have ground troops out in force as well, but they have no idea where the even begin to look!"

"I understand, Sir. We'll do the best that we can." Launching himself back into the air and struggling aloft, he soared back out over the forest's darkened trees, catching the occasional glimpse of another member of the winged search party as he squinted through the curtain of rain. An endless sea of heaving trees and clinging mist and dark night. Then he caught sight of an impact sight which had definitely not been there just months before. Following it to the end he found freshly created clearing in the center of which was an enormous crater swiftly transforming into a pond; beside it were two small figures huddled for warmth around a very badly wounded third. Even from that height, one of them was instantly recognizable. _Eren!_ Retrieving the flare gun from his belt, he loaded the cartridge and fired it into the sky.

"Captain Levi, look!" Hearing the shout he looked up immediately and saw, through the roaring storm, a column of red smoke. Red. The warning color of devastating injuries. He felt his skin chill, and it wasn't from the weather.

"Get Hanji!" With that barked commander, he yanked sharply on the reigns to wheel his horse around and took off at the swiftest gallop it could manage while slogging through mud towards the blood hued smoke; soon enough the hoof beats of two other mounts reached his ears as Hanji and the Commander fell in beside him.

"Who's injured?" she called over the wind.

"I don't know; it's next to impossible for them to land and report back with this infernal tempest!" Levi replied. "It's safe to assume that it's one of them-Yeager or Ackerman-or maybe even both. Flying in weather conditions like these is something accompanied by a high risk of crashing, especially when you're carrying someone else with you!"

"It isn't just injury that we are contending with; red smoke means mortal wounds." Erwin put in. "We'll have to institute field-measures to stabilize the wounded party at the scene before further transport can even begin to be considered. You've brought everything that will be needed to take care of this, Hanji?"

"Mike and Moblit have it with them; they're not far behind."

"Tch, death and dismemberment," Levi scoffed with a wan sigh. "Hell of a thing to have to come home to, even if we did expect the mouse to take advantage of the cat's absence."

"Let us not also forget that this is to be a rite of passage, not something for which she will be prosecuted and condemned."

"I know that," he informed the blonde, "but let's hold off on baptizing her into the Scouts until whichever one of them is currently hemorrhaging blood is taken care of."

"It's just up ahead, now!" The three came out into the freshly created clearing, skirting the deep crater in the center to make their way over to the dark shapes on the other side. An unfamiliar blonde young man sporting nothing more serious than minor cuts and bruises and Mikasa with a wounded arm and a uniform torn beyond repair and slathered in blood and pond muck were huddled together for warmth with the unconscious and clearly just barely alive form of a badly wounded Eren between them. Mike and Moblit made it into the clearing as well just as the three leapt from their horses and went running over. Hanji's focus-along with that of her two assistants-was immediately and entirely on Eren as Erwin gently roused Mikasa in an attempt to disentangle her from her brother. Levi winced when she began to scream and thrash about as if being attacked, kicking and clawing and biting until she realized exactly who he was and attached herself to him in a bone-crushing grip, swiftly dissolving into a soaked-through traumatized and sobbing mess. Levi took it upon himself to deal with the extra, pouncing on the young soldier and pinning him to the ground by the throat.

"Who the hell are you!"

"A-Armin! Armin Arlert!" He certainly seemed to have had the desired effect on the blonde, who was quite clearly far from comfortable being trapped beneath the weight of an intelligent Chimera currently possessed of the impression that he just might be hostile.

"Well then, Arlert, give me one good reason why I shouldn't consider you an agent of the Walls and kill you here and now?"

"B-Because I'm the one who Grisha Yeager left his notes!"

That was definitely a good reason. "_What?"_

"Eren's father; he gave them to Eren to give to me before he fled, knowing that I'd one day be able to put them to use! I translated them from the code he left after Mikasa went missing; I lost it when Eren fell but I remember everything it said!" Levi liked to think that he was a fairly good judge of whether a person was lying to him or not; as the blonde's blue eyes portrayed no deception, but a great deal of fear, he was willing to call it safe to allow him back to his feet. For now.

"Consider that a precaution."

"I-I understand; I don't take it personally…Sir?"

He nodded. "Lance Corporal Levi; unfortunate that we don't have time at the moment for more formal introductions." Turning his attention away from Armin, he saw that the scene before him had changed somewhat. Hanji Mike and Moblit were busily going about stopping the bleeding, binding what wounds they could and splinting any broken bones they found as Erwin gently held Mikasa back from running back to Eren's side each time even the slightest small noise of pain escaped his lips. "Oi, Shitty Glasses! What's the diagnosis?"

"Bad, but no longer mortal. There's a 50% chance that he'll survive to morning as things stand now. When we have him back at base, his chances to survive go up to 70%. But, regardless, his recovery will be a long and painful one; Eren won't be seeing battle again for quite a while, and if he ever flies again it'll be a miracle."

"Dangers of this blasted storm aside, I'll call Gunther and Oluo down here to lift him back to the barracks. Eren is one of _my_ Squad, under my direct command. Knowing that it will increase his chances of survival by up to 20%, they'll do it."

"Yes; risks of the storm taken into account, his situation is still bad enough to justify calling on such measures." With the Commander's permission given, Levi fired off a purple flare into the sky. Soon enough, the other two had arrived on the scene.

"It's touch and go; we need him returned to the barracks as quickly as possible." All the explination the pair of men needed; without saying a word, both went over to where Eren lay to carefully lift him off the ground. "Now that that has been taken care of, we should see about arranging transport for these two."

"We'll be ridding non-stop from this point until we return to the barracks." Erwin informed him. "They're wounded, tired, hungry and have undoubtably been through hell. I wouldn't doubt that neither of them are exactly capable of riding a horse on their own at the moment."

"Double saddle, then?" he received a nod in answer.

"I'll be glad to take our newest friend," Hanji piped up immediately. "From what I overheard of his little conversation with Corporal Shorty, he and I have a lot to talk about."

As he pulled himself back up into the saddle, Levi said "Well then Ackerman, it looks like you're with me." He expected complaints, resistance and arguing. Instead, silent and with her head hung low, she trudged over to him and allowed him to pull her up behind him in the saddle where she promptly buried her face in his cloak like a young child seeking comfort from a nightmare. She was soaked in rain and tepid pond water, smeared in blood and mud and God only knew what else, and normally the thought of such a thing being anywhere near him, let alone _touching_ him, would have made him cringe. But he knew that she had been dragged to and passed the 9th circle of hell behind those walls, was emotionally spent and completely shut down to the point where she was in dire need of any form of non-hostile contact; the mere fact that she would even think to seek such a thing from him was undeniable testament to the horrors she had gone through, as bad blood had persisted between them since they'd first met, so he didn't act on the immediate desire to lean away from her in disgust. Instead, he focused his mind on the arduous return journey still ahead and followed the other two back up into the mountains.


	13. Unfair of You

Chapter 13: Unfair of You

The moment that they'd arrived back at the barracks Mikasa had lunged-like a wild animal-towards the infirmary and had to be all but caged and dragged into Erwin's office. Now, with the door locked and Levi guarding it to make sure she remained there, she was up on her feet pacing the room wall to wall like a caged beast. Still filthy and dressed in rags. Still without anything to eat or drink. Still with her own wounds left untreated. All she would say was that she wanted to see her brother. Her brother. Her lover. Eren. How was Eren. A question that she must have asked at least 20 times in the past 10 minutes, each time only to receive the same answer. Each time interrupting Armin's explanation of what had been discovered in Grisha's missing notes. It finally got to the point where Levi felt he'd lose his mind if she continued to emulate a zoo lion with a broken record player duct-taped to its back; needless to say he was more than just a little bit relieved when Petra answered his summons, entering the room with a respectful knock.

"You called, Captain Levi?"

"Yes," he indicated Mikasa with a jerk of his chin. "The minute that we let her out of here, Ackerman is going to make a mad dash for Yeager's bedside, camp out there and go into helicopter mode; she'll get in the way. I need you to distract her until he's conscious, or at the very least until something changes. For better or for worse."

"Distract her?" Petra repeated. "How so, Sir?"

"See to it that _her_ needs are taken care of; she's not about to take herself into account under these situations." He replied. "Food, a bath and new clothes, treatment for her wounds. I don't care if you have to strip and bathe her yourself, tie her to a chair, force a bowl of stew down her throat and then wheel her into Hanji's office for treatment. Whatever you have to do, you will do it. Am I clear?"

"Of course," though she intended to be a great deal more gentle than that; she couldn't imagine what she must have gone through or what she was still going through, and so Petra intended to rely more on cajoling that force. "Mikasa," the ravenette didn't even flinch when she approached her, and made no reaction to having her name called. Her grey eyes held a glazed over quality, as if the reality of the situation wasn't quite able to fully connect with her mind, the rational part of which appeared to have, for the most part, shut down. "Mikasa," she tried again, slightly louder this time, reaching out to gently rest her hand on her shoulder; now she jumped and rounded on her, staring hollowly as if unable to determine who she was and whether or not she might be hostile. _What did they do to you?_ She thought, taking in the shivering humbled form and mentally comparing it to the blushing, but unbowed and very proud, young woman that she had been just days before. They would make her proud again, build her back up to new heights with the Wings of Freedom on her back, but first they had to fully return her to planet earth from whatever traumatized universe that she was currently locked in. Her mental recovery, much like Eren's physical one, would be a very long process. "Do you…recognize me? Do you know where you are?"

A moment passed before she received a stiff nod. "Petra, please, just let me see my brother."

"No one can see him at the moment; they have him in surgery. But he regained consciousness right before they took him in, so now it's almost a certainty that he'll survive." If the slight flicker of light in her eyes was anything to go by, that news was at least something of a comfort. "I'll make you a deal; if you come with me and get all of your needs-new clothes, food, treatment for your arm-then I'll take you in to see him the minute that he's out. Alright?" Mikasa seemed to consider this a few moments, and then reluctantly nodded. "Great. So, what would you like to do first?"

"I think…I need a shower."

"I agree!" This rather snide comment was rewarded with Petra stepping on his foot.

"Come on, the showers are this way." She escorted the other down the hallway and out the first floor to the far removed corner of the barracks where the shower where. Inside it was clean and dim and clad in tiles in dismal shades of grey. The little room was cold and damp, a soft dripping of water emanated from many of the stalls. "I'll go and see if I can dig up anything that will fit you; I'll leave them for you here and wait outside until you are done." With that said, the ginger left her in the showers. Alone, Mikasa carefully shucked off her dirt and blood encrusted clothing and stepped into the nearest stall. When she turned the knob she was immediately showered in a deluge of frigid water. She turned up the heat as far as it would go, not caring that the hot water scalded her skin and filled the stall with choking steam. She wanted it off. All of it. The dirt. The blood. Everything that had been inflicted on her while in custody and the very walls themselves. To send it all spiraling down the drain and never look back; to start fresh. She stayed under the shower's punishing spray until her skin was red raw from a combination of her vicious scrubbing and hot water and the stream turned ice cold. Stepping out of the shower she toweled herself dry and changed gratefully into the new clothes that had been left for her. Petra, as promised, was waiting for her outside; she shepherded the other back up the stairs into her own room and sat her down in front of a mirrored armoire and ran a brush gently through her hair. "I'm sure that you've heard it all before."

"Heard what?" her response was somewhat timid, as if in minor fear of being scolded, but was made with far less delay then before.

"How beautiful you are; you got really lucky with genetics I suppose. You don't even have to try." Petra told her. "You look almost like a porcelain doll, and your hair is so soft and shiny. I'm actually a little jealous; it's not often that people pay we gingers any positive attention, if you know what I mean. I'm very fortunate for finding Levi." Finished with her hair, Petra set the brush down on the dresser."

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Petra."

"What do you mean, you don't know what you're going to do?" she asked her gently. "Do about what?"

"Eren."

"He'll be fine, Mikasa. Our facilities are some of the best, even with how remote and cut off we are. Besides, he's stout and stubborn; he's not about to let something like this be the death of him."

"His being stubborn is precisely what I'm worried about," she confessed. "I know that what I did was wrong; I regret it horribly but I can't take it back, no matter how much I may wish otherwise. Even if Commander Erwin and the other superiors expected me to react the way that I did and can forgive my transgressions against the Scouting Legion but there is no guarantee that Eren will forgive me. And if he chooses not to, there is nothing that I or anyone else can do to sway him otherwise. I know that I have no right to expect-or even ask for-forgiveness, but if he turns me away…I don't know what I'll do with myself."

"He will forgive you; stubbornness aside, Eren has a good heart and he isn't petty or cruel. I don't doubt that he'll be angry with you, but he'll still take care of you just as the two of you always have before."

"I hope you're right." But her outlook on the possibility remained rightfully pessimistic.

"Everything will turn out alright in the end; you have to believe that." Petra's golden eyes fell on the other's injured arm, which she had unconsciously been nursing and motioned for her to come with her back outside of the room. "Let's take her down to Hanji's office and get that arm treated." The scientist's office wasn't far; naturally located right beside the labs. Inside, the pair found the bespectacled woman sitting behind her desk writing up some paperwork that would, no doubt, soon find itself on Levi's desk. "Squad Leader Zoe?"

"Oh, Petra! Mikasa!" She was immediately on her feet upon noticing them. "You're here about seeing to her injuries, right?"

"Yes; I thought it would be a good idea to take her to see you before dinner so that she could take some pain medication with food." Casting her a sideways glance, the shorter woman elaborated "that looks like it's really uncomfortable."

"Well, let's see what's wrong; is it alright if I examine you, Ms. Ackerman?" she nodded stiffly, and the other wasted no time in setting to work. "Some cuts and scrapes, likely caused by busting through the windows to escape. And quite a good number of bruises, but most of them are older."

"Nothing happened to me!" An immediate, highly defensive reply made without any thought.

Hanji raised an eyebrow, but all that she said was "well, all that 'nothing' certainly left its mark behind." When she touched her injured arm, Mikasa flinched and hissed in pain. "The good news, it isn't broken. The bad news, you've dislocated your shoulder and I'm going to have to pop it back into place. It's a quick process, but very painful to-."

"Pain is never something that has bothered me." She informed her. "Do what you have to; just get it over with."

"Just don't say I didn't warn you." Hanji took her arm in a firm grip and jerked it roughly forwards. A loud pop and searing pain as it slid back into its socket; Mikasa bit down on the cry that wanted to escape, blinking away the tears that pricked at her eyes. As Hanji picked up a small bottle of pills the contents inside rattled softly. "This is a painkiller that's relatively strong; it will definitely help with the pain. There are six weeks worth of pills in the bottle; take one of them every night at dinner until all of them are gone."

"Thank you," Mikasa reached out and took the little orange bottle, staring dully at the unfamiliar medical name.

"I should warn you that there are some rather serious side effects with this. On top of the relatively benign, and quite common, drowsiness there is a real danger-all be it only in rare cases-of severe depression and even a tendency towards suicidal thoughts and feelings. So if it won't be too much trouble for you Petra, I would like to ask that you keep an eye on her. At least for the first few weeks."

"That won't be any problem at all," she replied. "And, if I can't do it myself I'll make sure that one of the others do."

"Glad to hear it; dinner should be ready any minute. The two of you should head down so that she can start her regiment right away."

"Of course." Petra smiled and again motioned for the ravenette to follow. Once more they made their way through the barracks down to the enormous mess hall. Most of the Legion was already there, waiting for their dinner to be served. The familiar long wooden tables accompanied by benches. Almost every seat seemingly already filled. Her eyes strayed to the superior's table where Armin still seemed to be locked in some sort of in depth explanation with the Commander and Lance Corporal as his raptly attentive captive audience up until the point where Levi caught sight of her and made mention of it to the blonde, who promptly excused himself and made his way over.

"Mikasa, there you are. I was starting to worry!"

"I'm fine; I got cleaned up and saw Hanji for my wounds." She told him. "You?"

"I didn't need any; I'm just a little bruised up." He replied. "It certainly is nice to have a clean uniform though."

"You'll be okay from here, won't you?" Petra asked her, to which Mikasa nodded. From there the other woman wasted no time in making her way over to the others on her team, leaving the pair to find their own way to another table and sit down.

"It's almost like she was keeping an eye on you," he noted as the stew finally began to come out. "Don't tell me that they still consider you a risk."

"No, they don't. She is going to be 'keeping an eye on me' but that isn't why." Pulling the little bottle of white pills from her pocket, she showed them to her. "Apparently these have a small chance in rare cases to lead to severe depression. They want to make sure that I don't try anything."

"You talk about the prospect like it's ridiculous," Armin informed her, "but I wouldn't be so quick to blow it off. The influence of medications-dark or otherwise-can be overwhelmingly powerful; they are chemicals specifically engineered for the purpose of altering how a person thinks and functions. No matter how mentally and physically strong you may be, there is always a substantial risk that the pills will be stronger. Especially in times of emotional upheaval and distress." It still sounded ridiculous to her. Then again, she hadn't even taken the first pill yet…and now wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to.

_Don't be stupid! The notion that you'd ever even think about harming yourself is ridiculous! Besides, it's only a small dose! What could one, tiny pill a day possibly do to you?_ Unscrewing the lid without hesitating for a moment, she took the first pill before turning her attention to the stew. "Have you heard anything, or is he still in surgery?"

"I have, actually," he had her undivided attention almost immediately. "He got out of surgery almost ten minutes ago, but they've drugged him so he'll be unconscious for a while." It instantly ceased to matter to her that the contents of the bowl in front of her were boiling hot; her only focus was finishing quickly so that she'd be free to finally head up to the infirmary. "Is there any chance that I could convince you to sleep for a few hours before you go rushing up to see him?"

"No! I need to be there when he opens his eyes!" The spoon clattered against the porcelain bowl as she leapt to her feet and made for the door; despite not being finished yet himself, Armin didn't hesitate for a moment in following right on her heels. The infirmary was one of the few rooms that she had never actually visited, even on the tour that Eren had given her just after she had first arrived. The room was large and open and every surface was white; white floors, white walls, white ceiling. Large windows were set into the far side of the building, which supplied an incredible view of the nearby snow coated peaks rising higher into the distance. The walls were lined with an army of cots standing sentry like waiting soldiers; only one of them was occupied, and it was to this one that they immediately rushed. Eren lay listless and unconscious with the sheets pulled up to his chest and an IV drip in his arm. His eyes were closed, his face badly bruised and somewhat swollen, and a great deal of his skin was concealed beneath spatterings of gauze and bandages. They'd broken his horns off at the base, and thus with only his wings showing-damaged but for the most part repaired-visible he looked like an angel who had suffered injury after losing his balance and tumbling down from the heavens above. They sat there in silence late into the night; 5 pm, 7 pm, 10 pm. Finally, at almost midnight, Eren stirred and opened his eyes.

"Eren!" Voice both gentle and hesitant, she leaned forward slightly and took his hand. "You're awake." For a long time he simply gazed back at her blankly, his mind made too foggy by the drugs they'd given him for him to immediately put together just who it was that he was looking at. Then his expression iced-over and his eyes turned sharp and cold and, weakly but with a finality that broke her heart, pulled his hand from her grasp and turned his head away.

"Armin, get her out of here."

"Eren, please!"

"Verlassen, Mikasa! You've done enough."

"Please, just let me explain-!"

"Explain?" he scoffed, finally looking at her. "There's nothing that you can say to "explain". And I have nothing to say to you. And don't bother trying to ask forgiveness; you won't get it. It's over." His voice was nothing like she'd ever heard it, laced in venom and colder than the darkest winter's night. Her hands started to shake, her world falling in around her. This couldn't really be happening, could it? What had she done?

"Come on, Mikasa," taking hold of her uninjured arm, Armin gently lead his shocked friend out into the dark hallway.

"A-Armin-."

"I think it may be a good idea to give him a few days. Eren needs some time to calm down and really think about what he's doing; we both know how he can be when he's fired up and angry. He'll reconsider."

"But what if he doesn't."

"He will," he reassured her. "I'll talk to him, I promise." She continued to stand there for a moment longer, then turned and set off stiffly down the hallway towards her room. For his part, Armin went back into the infirmary to find the other staring out one of the enormous windows, his face-for once-unreadable. "Eren."

"What?" his voice was brittle and devoid of color; the other crossed the room to sit back at the bedside before answering.

"What are you thinking?"

"I don't need a psychological assessment, Arlert!"

"And I'm not trying to give you one," he told him. "I'm just trying to understand."

"Understand what, exactly? There's nothing to understand!"

"I thought you loved her."

"I did." He replied. A pause. "I do."

"If that's true, then why can't you forgive her? For those who truly love each other, there is nothing in this world that could ever break them apart. Very little that they can't forgive."

"Nothing that she could do to me would ever be unforgivable in my eyes."

"Then why-?"

"She didn't so much as flinch when it came to turning my over to those monsters; she preyed on my trust to lure me into their trap! Now she needs to bite the bullet." He glared at the wall, controlled expression breaking to reveal what boiled beneath the surface. "Mika needs to learn that I don't bounce back from everything; I'm not made of rubber! That not all of her mistakes will just roll off my back like drops of water!"

"There are better ways of doing that; at least tell her that you need some time before you can forgive her. Making her think that no hope exists may have consequences that you'll regret."

"That I doubt," he scoffed. "I've made my decision; no one is going to change my mind."

"You need to talk to her, Eren!"

"_I don't need to do anything!"_ He snarled back stubbornly. "I'll talk to Mikasa when I am ready, and not before then. Weeks. Months. Maybe even years. I don't know how long that it will be before I want to talk to her again. She didn't think twice about following through with a plan that would have gotten me killed. Looking back on it, she didn't seem all that torn up about me back when she thought that I'd been dead for 10 years. Mikasa may act like it matters to her, but I know it doesn't. _Nothing_ affects her, Armin!"

"You're wrong about that, and we both know it!" Getting in an argument with his childhood friend had been the furthest thing from his intention on entering into the conversation, but sometimes Eren just made things impossible. "Most people, myself included, express some of their feelings and keep others of our emotions to ourselves. You, however, are one extreme; you express your feelings to the world with abandon, making yourself readable and allowing others to react and adjust immediately to your emotions. Mikasa is the other; your polar opposite in that regard. She internalizes. Everything. Happiness. Anger. Sorrow. All of it. How she sees things; out of sight, out of mind. She bottles it up, but all that's doing is sticking a cork in the volcano! We both saw her try and kill that warden back at the walls; she snapped, and that isn't going to be a one time occurrence. It _will_ happen again, it's only a matter of time. On top of that, with the potential depressive side effects of the pain medication that Hanji has her on, the next explosion is likely to be directed at herself."

"If you have something to say just say it; stop speaking in riddles!"

"All that I'm trying to say is this; tell her that you need some time. Talk to her. Work this out some other, healthier way. Otherwise, you may drive her to do something you'll never be able to forgive yourself for and that she won't live to regret."

In a grim sort of way, Eren looked almost amused. "Anyone else and I might believe you, but considering that it's Mikasa I highly doubt that that scenario will ever happen. That's completely ridiculous, Armin!"

"And what you're doing is entirely unfair!" Eren glared at him. "I just thought I'd let you know."

"If all you're going to do is try and talk me out of it, take her side, then I don't want you in here either!" He growled.

"I'm not taking either of your sides in this; I'm the neutral part who's trying to stop both of you from doing something stupid!"

"A load of bullshit!"

"Your stubbornness hasn't changed at all, has it Eren."

The brunet crinkled his nose in annoyance and looked away from him. "It's late, I'm tired, and I'd like to sleep so unless there's something else that you would like to say-?"

"I'll leave you be for the night," Armin assured his friend, rising from the chair. "I might come back after breakfast tomorrow, if there's time. After ten years, you and I have a lot to catch up on." Eren grunted noncommittally in answer, turning onto his side and pulling the covers of the cot up over his head. Shaking his head with a heavy sigh, Armin extinguished the candle before leaving the room and closing the infirmary doors behind him.

**Verlassen – Leave.**


	14. Downward Spiral

**I know that there has been a little bit of a delay between my last update and this one; I'm afraid that that may be the norm for at least a little while as School has begun busy to the point where many nights I come home do my homework and then pass out asleep on my couch. Thank you all for your patience and for the reviews you have posted. **

**The next few chapters of the story may be a little bit difficult to read due to ooc for dramatic purpose and more potential trigger content, but stick with it because I promise there will be a lemon at the end as well as the eventual happy ending at the very end.**

**Symptoms of depression: unexplainable aches and pains, zoning out/attention issues, disrupted sleep patterns, mood swings and agitation, not wanting to do anything/ get out of bed, feeling very tired, (in serious cases) preoccupation with death**

She'd returned to her room after being sent away, but it didn't take more than a few hours of lying on her back in bed staring at the ceiling for her to realize that sleep wasn't an option regardless of how exhausted she was. Leaving her room behind, Mikasa made her way back through the halls towards the infirmary. The large double doors were closed, no light shining from beneath them. She reached out towards the door but her hand stopped cold an inch or two away from the handle. Eren had banished her from his side; didn't want to see her. He was doubtlessly asleep by now, but the knowledge that he didn't want her near him was like a physical barrier that prevented her from going inside; if he woke up and found her there he wouldn't be happy, and she didn't want to upset him any further. So she leaned her back against the wall and slid down until she was sitting on the icy stone floor. The hall was dark and cold and silent, her uniform was far from warm and she hadn't brought a blanket with her, but Mikasa was not about to allow her own discomfort to chase her off. This was the closest to Eren that she could get; she couldn't see him, couldn't feel his presence, but she knew that he was there on the other side of that wall and for her that was enough. And that assurance seemed to have been what she needed, as her own exhaustion finally began to make itself impossible for her to ignore. Her head sagged down onto one of her shoulders and her eyes fell closed; she began to drift off. Silence for a long while as she hovered in a sort of half-asleep state, then she heard the far off sound of a door opening and footsteps heading down the hall; they stopped nearby for a moment before continuing on their way, so she paid them no mind. Until, that is, she felt something being thrown across her shoulders and opened her eyes to find a pair of grey ones belonging to the last person she'd expected to see staring back at her.

"Just what the hell do you think you are doing out here at 4 in the morning, Ackerman?" Levi asked, his tone rather gentle-for him, at least-as he finished securing the blanket around her shoulders. "It's the dead of winter and these halls aren't insulated; you'll freeze."

"I couldn't sleep; I needed to be closer to him and my bedroom is on the other side of the barracks."

"Then go into the infirmary and sleep in one of the other cots. Don't sit out here on the floor."

"I can't go in!" She whimpered, pulling the blanket tighter around herself in an effort to find some sort of comfort. "Eren won't let me; he hates me now because of what I did. I expected it, I know that I deserve it, but…it hurts."

He didn't like her, she knew that, and he wasn't exactly what anyone would call a 'warm' person by any means, she knew that too, but now the Lance Corporal was regarding her with what might have been sympathy. Almost as if he understood. "Yeager is renowned for sticking his head up his ass whenever the shit hits the fan; it's a defense mechanism, rather like that of an ostrich. He's stubborn and, at times, even stupid and refuses to open his eyes to anything other than what he perceives to be the truth. I'd be happy to beat some sense into him for you."

"That would only make it worse; I think we are both well aware of that. He may well have an enormous amount of respect for you, but any attempt to foist outside authority upon him is doomed form the start." And frankly she felt that, when it came to his 'beating' some sense into him, he wasn't kidding. "Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Helping me. I'm well aware of the fact that you're not fond of me, for more reasons than just the reality of what I've done."

"What you've done has been forgiven; you need neither blame yourself nor atone for it, and as far as I'm concerned it never happened." He informed her after a few moments in his usual cold demeanor. "It is true that, as you say, I don't like you; the reality of things is that there are not many people in this world who I don't dislike. It's simply in my nature, nothing personal. Besides, I have my own system for dealing with grievances."

"And that would be?"

"Save it until the last of the cannon fire has been silenced; hostilities amongst those who should be allies serves for nothing but ill during times of war." That said, he straightened up and brushed some of the dust off of his uniform. "I have paperwork to attend to courtesy of Shitty Glasses, so I'll leave you alone. If you really want to stay out here no one is going to stop you, just do your best to get at least some sleep; we'll be putting you and your blonde friend Arlert to work around the barracks starting first thing tomorrow morning."

"Work…Sir?" The last bit added as a somewhat reluctant after thought; If he could put aside whatever dislike he had of her until the appropriate time to assess it came about then she would try to do the same, but it were as if her emotions were resisting her attempts to control them and had become about as budge able as a mountain. Levi rolled his eyes.

"Yes, work. And before you ask yes, it is busy work. We need to plan, Eren needs to heal and while that happens the rest of you-not just the pair of you but everyone else in the Legion as a whole-had best be kept busy so that the destructive tendencies of boredom cannot make themselves known." That was true, she supposed; Mikasa had seen first-hand that boredom-among other things-could easily lead to corruption and worse. As her latest superior walked off brusquely down the hall and into the darkness she did her best to settle more comfortably against the rough stone wall, and it wasn't too much later that she fell asleep.

For once he found the food in front of him about as appetizing as a plate of sand. Eren wasn't hungry at all at the fault of the drug that still pervaded his system, making it difficult to think clearly. They were to ward off infection, he'd been told, and yet did nothing for the pain. Armin had come in to see how he was doing when he wasn't assigned some meaningless chore or another to help out around the barracks but he hadn't mentioned her or what he thought about the whole situation again, not wanting to anger his friend when he was still recuperating and luckily his sister had taken him seriously and hadn't shown her face again; for that much he was grateful. Picking at your food with no intention of eating it was a lonely business, so when he heard the door open Eren perked up immediately. But to his surprise it wasn't Armin that walked in through the door.

"Petra?" the ginger cast him in an unfriendly glower which was a very good imitation of Levi's and was most out of character for her but didn't answer. "What' wrong?"

"What's wrong? What you're doing, _that_ is what is wrong!" She snapped at him harshly, scoldingly, as she came to a stop at his bedside. "Can't you see that you are hurting her?"

First Armin and now Petra? Eren bristled, annoyance shining through his exhaustion. "Who put you up to this? Armin? Mikasa?"

"Lance Corporal Levi personally asked me to talk some sense into you, hoping that I could get you to see reason!"

"This isn't any of your business, Ral! Yours, his or anyone else's!"

"Do you really expect to sell that?" she quipped back. "She's been sleeping outside on the floor in the hallways for the past week all because you won't let her in!"

"I told her not to come near me; tell her to go back to her room!"

"You can't ban her from the hallway, Eren!"

_"Why the hell is everyone taking her side! I'm the one who was betrayed and nearly died! I'm the victim here!"_

_ Whack!_ White stars popped in his vision and his face began to sting as his mind went blank. What had just happened? Slowly, taking in the sight of her raised hand and the anger sparking in her eyes, he realized that Petra, who had always been the first to help him and take on the nurturing motherly sort of role, who had always been so gently and soft spoken, who he had never once before this moment seen angry, had slapped him. Blank with total shock was the only way to describe what he felt in that moment; he had no idea what to do; how to react to the totally alien occurrence that had just taken place.

"All that you are, Eren Yeager, is a spoiled petty little boy who refuses to grow up!" With that parting thought made in a vicious hiss she turned on her heel and stalked out of the room. Still in minor shock over what had happened Eren allowed himself to collapse back against the pillows. His Captain who he so admired, who thought very little of his sister for his own reasons that he chose not to disclose, who didn't like her in the slightest, taking a stand in her favor? Sicking his girlfriend on him in a flamboyant display of feline female fury; Petra, angry for the first time he'd ever seen her, raising her voice for the first time he'd ever heard it. Slapping him so hard that a red hand print was still smarting against his face. Armin, his oldest friend who he'd been so convinced would always have his back regardless, trying to talk him out of his decision. He didn't understand it. She'd betrayed them all, tricked them so completely while he'd always been so loyal. Always been one of them. So why? Why would they take her side over his? The mere thought of it made his head hurt; the entire world had turned upside down in the matter of a few days. And the fact that he'd be released from the infirmary in the next few days would only make it harder for him to avoid her; he was still terribly hurt over what she had done, but his will was crumbling fast and to prevent himself from caving he would practically have to live in his room. This little punishment game of sorts was about to get a whole hell of a lot more difficult but he'd stick to his guns, of that much he was determined.

It had been a weak since the jail break and the typical security measures had been put in place; heightened security, damage control and containment procedures, and civilian curfews amongst them. The construction rate of the new wall around the Stohess District had been doubled, and the remainder of their team, the King's own guard, had been put under quarantine to determine if any other traitors still lurked in their midst. Jean's blood chilled at the thought of facing Mikasa on the field of open combat as an enemy, especially after having witnessed the type of atrocity she was capable of when pushed to and past the point of no return, and boiled at the mere thought of what that Chimera bastard-the monster that she still cared for, still called her brother-must have done to corrupt her to the Legion's side. As he all but stalked through the palace halls, a familiar voice cut through his brooding and he reluctantly slowed to a stop.

"Something that I can help you with, Braun?" he drawled at the burly blonde who came up beside him.

"No need to bite me, Kirchstein" he replied with a small smirk. "I was just wondering if you heard."

"Heard what?" he was neither in the mood nor possessed of the patience to deal with a guessing game at that particular moment; the sooner that he shoed off the better.

"That the escaped Chimera is still of some use to us. He might be long gone but he sure left a whole hell of a lot of blood behind."

"How is that useful?" he could feel his short supply of patience rapidly dwindling even further.

"Simple; as it was explained to me, the Yeager boy still had traces of the serum in his blood stream despite it being administered years ago. The lab in Sina, what was left of it, managed to use it to make a modified form of the Blight; an extremely mild version which would in theory give a human soldier both a good number of Chimera abilities and an immunity to the virus."

"Interesting." Not really.

"Annia and I are planning on allowing them to test it on us, and we're trying to convince Bertold to go along with it too."

That statement lead everything else that might have crowded his plate to be pitched carelessly out of the nearest window. "_What!?_ Why in God's name would you ever think that something like that could possibly be a good idea!"

"Evolution of warfare, Kirchstein; the arms race to build a better soldier. Erwin has a legion of Chimera at his command, so to beat him we need at least a few of something better."

"But the reason that we fight him is because of the fact that he forced the Blight on the shoulders of his own men! If our Superiors are allowed to do this, what is there to separate the forces of the Walls from the Scouting Legion?"

"Our banner, that and who we serve."

"I'm not comfortable with this Braun, and I can tell you right now that very few of the others will be either. Not just our own team but the other regiments as well."

"The only thing that I can tell you is to get comfortable with it, Kirchstein; it's been decided."

Jean remained frozen in place as the other continued on his way and disappeared down the hallway. As the old saying goes desperate times called for desperate measures, but at the moment he wasn't so sure about these.

The weighted bucket fell into the well with a loud splash, breaking through the skin of ice that had formed and sinking fast into the water below to pull the rope tight. Pulling to bucket back up with the water in tow via the old and slightly rusted-out handle, Armin caught sight of Mikasa standing nearby with her own full bucket sitting at her feet, rubbing her hands together in pain.

"Are you alright?" he asked, all the possibilities of what could be ailing her-from benign to worthy of raising alarm-running through his head. She nodded.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just a little bit sore, from the cold and sleeping on the floor."

That was one possible cause of the aches and pains she was so clearly feeling, but there was also another and that was what concerned him. "Are you still taking those pills?"

Mikasa nodded again with a small sigh. "Yes, but they're barely helping…and I haven't been sleeping well lately." Another possible result of sleeping on the cold stone floor, or a symptom of the depression Hanji had warned of. But with both possible signs being so subtle with a shared alternate explanation he couldn't be sure, so for the moment all that he could do was keep a careful watch. "We should head in before the water in the buckets freeze." In the almost sub-zero conditions it was a real danger that such would happen, especially with darkness approaching fast on the horizon.

"Yeah, you're right." He agreed; together they picked up the buckets and began to schlep them towards the tank they'd been tasked with refilling three hours before. With the final few buckets deposited in their place the tank was very near to overflowing once again and they were free of chores for what little remained of the day.

"Well, that's it then." He said with a sigh, sagging slightly against the wooden tank's side in exhaustion. "We still have about another hour before dinner. We should go and hide up in the library before the Lance Corporal can come with something else for us to do."

"Actually, I think I'm going to take a walk."

"But Mikasa, the woods are dangerous at night and it's getting even colder!"

"I'll be back before nightfall, in time for dinner. It's not as if I'm going very far." He still wasn't entirely sure about allowing her to go off alone, but she had already started walking away from him and as such hadn't really left him with much choice. Being alone was a luxury she had taken for granted for almost her entire life but of late she rarely found a single moment where she wasn't under the watchful eyes of someone. As such it felt good, natural even, to once again cloak herself in the solitude and isolation that had long been her defense from a cruel reality. As she had promised her friend she did not go far, just a few yards into the trees and brush down the mountainside from the barracks so that she was out of sight. It was rocky there and very steep, but the danger posed by the loose soil and unstable shale stone ledge didn't so much as cross her mind. It didn't matter that the rock on which she perched was freezing as she pulled her knees up to her chest. Mikasa knew that they were only watching her so closely because they thought she might prove to be a danger to herself, that they were only doing it to protect her, but she still felt horribly stifled as if locked in a cage. The prospect that she could possibly be depressed, let alone inclined towards putting an end to things by her own hand, was ridiculous. Weren't depressed people supposed to be-for lack of a better word-depressed? To not want to get out of bed. To consider life not worth living; everything to be colorless and meaningless. Sure she was deeply wounded and hurt over the end of things with Eren, but that didn't mean she'd end it. Surely, if given enough time, she'd be able to find something else-someone else-that mattered to her even if it wasn't in quite the same way right? If anything she'd begun to appreciate what she hadn't even noticed before; the graceful form of a bloodied razor blade, the ability held by water to both sustain life and take it, the totality of a fall from a high enough ledge. Speaking of which, just how far of a drop was the one in front of her? Slowly getting up off the rock she drew forwards, trying to peer over the edge from a relatively safe distance but finding herself unable to see anything. The shale cracked and trembled as she continued to edge, step by inching step, further forwards. Just a bit further…just a bit further after that. She only had time to register the titanic _crack!_ that rang out as the ledge broke loose from the mountain before the ground disappeared from beneath her feet. Luckily, just in the nick of time, a pair of very strong arms wound around her waist and yanked her back onto solid ground.

"Good catch, Jinn." Drawled a very familiar voice. "Ackerman, what the shitting hell was that?"

"I…" shaken by the sudden shift the supposedly solid earth had given beneath her, Mikasa had to steady herself before answering. "I was trying to see how high up that ledge was."

"And the loudly cracking stone didn't give you some small inkling that that might not be such a good idea?" Levi stared her down in a manner as if he were trying to wrench whatever secrets she might be hiding from her soul. "Or maybe you were trying to jump."

Jump? Of course not! "With all due respect, Lance Corporal, if I'd been trying to jump I would have chosen a better place to do it. I didn't realize that the ledge was so unstable."

He looked far from convinced, but stood down. "When Arlert showed up alone I became marginally worried and went to find you; lucky that we found you when we did."

"I suppose." She looked away. Something about his stare in that moment was too intense, as if he knew-or could at least guess-something about her that even she didn't know. "I understand that Hanji thinks I have depression, but if that were the case I would be the one obsessed with my own death. Instead, it seems that everyone else is."

"Captain, she has a point."

"Emotion is a fickle beast; when running high, it can turn on the unaware quite quickly. You may feel fine now, but who's to say about tomorrow? A week from now? Until you're done with those pills, I will continue to consider you a ticking time bomb." But he seemed to be winding down on the subject, likely at the fault of not wanting to be out in the cold any longer than he had to. "My point is that this is all a part of being a Scout."

"Depression?" Levi didn't seem amused but if Eld's somewhat dry snicker was anything to go off of at least someone had taken that comment as the joke she had intended it as.

"Everyone being in everyone else's business to the point where at times they're practically crawling up your ass!" His tone was flat. "Now, let's head back in; no use in freezing our tails off and missing dinner."

They headed back up the steep hill, Mikasa casting a final arch glance back down at the sheer cliff, and made it back onto the flat and solid ground after only a few minutes and very little difficulty. Inside of the barracks it was incredibly warm compared to outside-she hadn't realized just how could she was until she was away from the chill wind-and the air was perfumed by the smell of stew. Light and sound already spilled from beneath the mess halls' doors. Her two companions pushed them open and walked inside without delay, but when she felt a stony gaze on her shoulders and looked up to see Eren occupying the space beside Armin she froze. And so in lay the danger of having a shared best friend. Mikasa came to a dead stop in the doorway, her eyes flicking around the room in desperation for another place to sit.

"Move along, Ackerman!" From the look on his face, if he hadn't been shorter than her, he'd have thrown her over one shoulder to fully insure that she complied; as it was he proceeded to drag her along with him towards the table where his team was sitting. From the look on Eren's face he was even more shocked than she was to witness the Lance Corporal drag her up the aisle and deposit her in one of the seats beside the ginger before continuing onwards to the superior's table to sit with Erwin. With a heavy sight, Eren slumped forward slightly in his seat; his horns were regrowing at a relatively slow pace, the razor sharp barbs just beginning to poke up through his dark hair.

"She turns on us and all the sudden I'm the outcast!" He grumbled. "I don't get it."

"Well you already know what I am going to say."

"I don't need to hear that!"

Setting his spoon down, Armin sighed. "I figured that, honestly. I wasn't going to say anything." A somewhat tense silence between them.

"I don't think that I can do this for much longer, Armin."

"Don't tell me that Eren Yeager is actually coming to his senses."

He snorted. "Funny." The spoon clinked against the side of his bowl. "I'm not about to throw in the towel just yet." Eren's eyes again returned to Mikasa's back; Petra was all but fussing over her as Eld relayed whatever-apparently upsetting-circumstances had lead the three of them to enter the room together, and he could see that his is sister looked increasingly uncomfortable the longer that she sat there. "I'm starting to edge towards telling her that I forgive her but I'm not sure that I should. Besides, she'll be fine a while longer with everyone rallying around her to leave me out in the cold. No use feeling sorry for her.

"For a minute there, I thought you might have learned your lesson." The blonde drawled, only to receive yet another eye roll from the brunet as he went back to eating.

"I don't need to learn a damn thing."


	15. Something Stupid

**Good news (or bad I suppose) is that this chapter is rock bottom; all up hill from here back towards happier things.**

Chapter 15

He'd been keeping a careful eye on her as time wore on in an attempt to make sure that no more 'accidents' like the one that Levi had described to him on the cliff took place again. She'd been fine at first-achy and tired but one could make a case that that was normal-but as days passed and the concentration of the medicine in her body grew he had noticed marked and highly troubling sign almost immediately; she'd begun to zone out at any and all times, almost as if nothing could hold her attention for very long and she would all but refuse to speak of late. She was now halfway through the bottle and had withdrawn to her room in the barracks in the middle of the day when they were supposed to be helping with the chores. The room she hadn't once gone back to willingly since the night that they had first returned to the Legion. And that was when he knew that something was very wrong. Armin had rushed immediately through the halls to her room and, after a good period of time spent pounding on the door only to receive no answer, had let himself inside. He found her sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, one of the razor sharp twin blades resting across her lap, staring in an almost glazed over fashion at the opposite wall; her thin, graceful hands were running up and down the frigid metal edge in almost the same manner as a lover's stroking, not seeming bothered by the little cuts that opened across the skin and spilled red blood.

"Mikasa!" He was horrified; what could she possibly be thinking? Despite his shout, she didn't even flinch and the dead look in her eyes didn't falter for a moment. "What are you doing in here; we're supposed to be cleaning!" She'd always been so responsible, so the fact that she would suddenly shirk them off in favor of attempting to pry the secrets of the universe from a wall was more than just a little bit concerning. But what she said next was what really made his blood run cold.

"You know, from the moment that I first witnessed my parent's murder I've always thought that death was beautiful," her hand coasted again down the length of the blade in her lap, her nails eliciting a chilling hollow scraping sound from the metal as another small gash opened along her thumb. "I used to be terrified of that night; I'd relive it night after night and Eren would have to hold me for hours just to make me stop screaming, but after we graduated from the military academy I started to realize the truth of just how pretty blood is. How much fun, how intensely gratifying, it is to kill; to hold that much power over something. And just recently I've begun to wonder what it would be like. What it looks like, feels like, to be dead."

This was bad; very bad. He needed to get the blade away from her somehow, but had no illusion that trying to take if from her by force wasn't an option; he wasn't strong enough to wrestle with Mikasa over anything, and trying to do so might push her towards rash action of hurting herself further. Praying that he wouldn't try anything while he was gone, Armin turned and ran out of the room in search of someone, anyone, who was a superior officer and could perhaps manage to talk some sense into her where he couldn't. He'd hoped to stumble open Levi or Hanji or even any of the senior members of the Scouts who might be able to talk her down but he ended up crossing paths with Erwin himself, who at the time just so happened to be exiting his office door. "_Commander, Sir, we have a problem! It's Mikasa! She has a weapon, Sir!" _He could only thank God that the older man immediately understood exactly what the panicked blonde meant.

"Where?"

"Her room, this way!" If anyone in the Scouting Legion could talk her down it would be the Commander; he could only hope that he hadn't done anything to hurt herself already. But when he pushed open the door for the second time the room on the other side was empty. "She's gone!" The only small consolation was that the slightly bloody weapon had been left behind.

"She can't have gotten far; regardless of whether the incident a few days ago was an accident or something else Levi's Squad would never have allowed her to set foot outside of the front doors alone." Gravity of the situation aside, the Commander's voice remained as starkly calm as always. "She must be around her somewhere."

"From all of the thundering around I heard up here I assume that the two of you are looking for Ackerman?" Levi, attracted undoubtedly by the ruckus caused by their hurried crossing of the barracks inquired rather dryly as he appeared behind them in the doorway.

"Do you know where she is?" Erwin's blue eyes met with the detached and rather-bored looking grey ones of the smaller man.

"The lab; Zoe caught her on her way down to help with the kitchens and drafted her into helping her instead as, it would seem, her two poor excuses for assistants need assistance." He replied. "I happened to be informed of this by Zacharius after I figured out she was AWOL from cleaning duty."

"I'll go check on her," having her no longer missing was a relief, but knowing that she was in the lab-knowing what he did about her now undeniably unleashed and volatile emotional state and the that there were two wild chimera in there whose cages were not always as soundly locked as they should be-was not. "Thank you, Lance Corporal. Commander."

Levi watched the other move past him and down the hall towards the stairs before returning his attention to his colleague. "I take it that we just had another scare, and that this one was definitely not a careless accident of any form or fashion."

The other nodded, crossing the room to pick up the forsaken and somewhat bloodied sword. "All that he said was 'she has a weapon'. From the look on his face when he came running down the hall, and the blood-though it is admittedly a small amount-on this blade she must have said or done something that left him with no doubt of her intention to use it."

"What are you going to do about this, Erwin?"

"Intervene; this has gone on for more than long enough. Inform Eren that he is to report to my office immediately after dinner."

"Because if anyone has a hope of pulling her from the likely pill-induced Pyschosis it's him?"

To that, the Commander nodded. "And I will see to it that he does, be it by hook or by crook."

When Armin reached the lab he found Mikasa-the wounds on her hands carefully bound in clean bandages-using a hooked metal pole to push a bowl of raw meat into one of the cages in the back of the room while Hanji feverishly wrote down observations and Mike and Moblit fiddled with something else on the opposite side of the room.

"Mikasa!" This time she jumped slightly, turning to face him in mild confusion as he ran up to her. "Do you have any idea how terrifying that it was for me to come back with help and find you gone?"

"Help?" she repeated, looking mildly confused. "Help for what?"

Help for what? Was this some sort of joke? An attempt to change the subject perhaps? Or was it something else. "Are you trying to tell me that you don't remember what happened?" The empty look in her eyes. The blood on the blade. What she had said.

"I remember that we were assigned cleaning duty this morning. But I must have blacked out, because the next thing I remember is coming to in my room sitting up in bed with one of my blades in my lap; I must have gotten these," she held up one of her bandaged hands, "while cleaning it. I was headed down to the kitchen to help, but Hanji pulled me in here instead. Why, did I do something that I am not aware of?"

Frist aches and pains and disrupted sleep patterns, then mood swings, and now total blackouts and a preoccupation with death that she wasn't even consciously aware of? Unless she wasn't telling him the truth, which considering that it was Mikasa was fully possible, it was undeniable that she had depression. He could only be happy that she didn't have to stay on the pills for much longer. "No, of course not." Best not to confront her with it for the moment, but he could tell that the scientist sitting nearby-despite her show of taking notes on the behavior of her pets-was listening intently to their conversation. "I finished with my assigned chores for the day but the Lance Corporal will likely expect that you still complete yours and that you finish them before dinner. Neither of us want you to be punished over it, so how about I help you once you finish up here?"

"Yes, you're right about needing to finish what I was assigned. And your help would definitely make it go much quicker." Mikasa's eyes shifted slightly over to Hanji. "If that is all?"

"Of course, thank you for all of your help Mikasa." The older woman replied brightly as she leapt to her feet. "But before you go I have a suggestion to make about the medicine that I gave you; if you have to take it for the pain, only do a half dose. But it may be best that you skip it entirely tonight. Just to ere on the side of caution."

A moment passed before Mikasa nodded in understanding. "If that is what you think is best then I won't take my dose tonight" she promised. "I guess we should get going Armin; we've a lot of work to do."

'See the Commander after dinner tonight you little shit!' The first time that his Captain had called him anything worse than 'brat' in over nine years. And for what reason was he being summoned, out of the blue, to the Commander's office? There was just enough nervousness that he might have done something wrong to lead him to hesitate to two hours after dinner and one hour before curfew to leave his bedroom and make the journey through the now quiet halls. Outside of the windows it was pitch black, overcast and windy. Steeling himself once he reached the door, Eren swallowed hard and knocked once.

"Come in," the slightest trace of impatience that colored his voice made the other pale as he opened the door and hesitantly edged inside. The Commander was sitting behind his desk, as usual attending to some manner of paperwork or another. "You're late, Eren." Statement made without looking up; already he felt as if he were being scolded. "Sit, please."

He obeyed. "S-Sir?" his mouth was very dry from nerves. "Have I…done something wrong?"

"Yes, you have. And I've called you in here to see that you rectify it before it can get any worse."

And it was then that it dawned on him what this was all about. First Armin. Then Levi and Petra. Now the _Commander_? Why couldn't they all just stay out of his personal life; let him take care of things the way that he felt he needed to? "I don't need this!" As it always did when he was unreasonably upset, respect went out the window; indignation settled in instead as he got up to leave.

"Clearly you do, because otherwise there would be no reason for me to call you in here and have this conversation. You're not a child anymore Eren, you're a man, and you need to start acting like one." A statement, not an accusation, made in a calm and level voice but the power behind it was more than enough to knock Eren back into the chair behind him. "I understand that you're hurt and angry and feel that she betrayed you, but how is what you're doing to her now any better? She needs you Eren, now more than ever. Don't turn your back on her over something so petty; just so that you know, we had a real scare today. Talk to her."

The brunet remained stunned a moment longer before asking "is that an order, Sir?"

"Do I need to make it one?"

"…No." In that moment all of the fight appeared to go out of him. "She's tried to talk to me a few times…I've thought about letting her in more than once, but I don't know what I could possibly say to her."

"What you say doesn't matter; anything will be far better than nothing at all."

"I suppose that that is true," he said softly, rising to his feet. "I'll go and see her now."

"Good. You're dismissed."

She'd been lying on her back in bed for hours, unable to get the sleep that she had wanted to at fault of the aching in her joints and the throbbing of her now half-healed shoulder and the stinging of her bandaged hands. The pain pills had sat beside her on the nightstand, as yet untouched in accordance to Hanji's warning, almost as if they were taunting her. She wanted to try and talk to Eren again, she fully intended to try again that night just one more time, but the pain-emotional and physical-was unbearable. The pills, sitting there, looming over her, promised a relief. An escape. Popping the lid off she took one, then two, then three and fled into the fog that almost immediately began to haze over her mind but it did nothing to help with the real source of her agony. If anything, it made the gash in her heart all the more pronounced. Pulling herself up off of her bed and onto her feet she stumbled unsteadily, limbs numb, and crashed into her nightstand upending it and sending the white pills scattering across the floor like roached before a light but she didn't care. Making her way out of the room she doddered in an almost drunken manner out into the hallway, banging into anything and everything in her path as the walls bent down over her and the floor contoured like a writhing serpent. Finally reaching Eren's bedroom door she slumped against it, her body feeling boneless and spine bending almost painfully. A heavy thud as her fist met with the wood.

"Eren!" Her voice was nearly slurred as she called out his name, continuing to bang on the door. "Eren, please, let me in!" He was there, she could swear that he was; she could hear the shift of bedsprings and the sound of his breathing as he tried to hide from her. To pretend that he wasn't there. She continued to call out to him, voice rising higher and higher in octave rougher and pressured as her pleas went unanswered by the man who her impaired mind had convinced her was cowering behind that door until tears were blotting out her vision and sobbing had stolen her voice, her fists feeling red raw from repeated abuse against the coarse wood. The message was clear to her, under the influence of what she had taken, that he didn't want her there. Pulling the scarf from around her neck, she dropped it carelessly onto the floor outside his door; let him know that she was gone. Maybe that would make him happy. Soon she again found herself walking through the halls, down the stairs and towards the door. She didn't know where she had gotten it-if she'd returned to her room to grab her own or stumbled across another set elsewhere-but the weight of her 3DM gear was once again straining at her hips as she pushed the front doors wide and emerged into the winter's night. The cold wind cut through her thin clothing, biting into any exposed skin and sending wispy black clouds scattering across the sky. She walked. Walked blindly, not caring if the ground before her was solid or if she tumbled over a cliff into oblivion. She walked until she couldn't go any further, for a particularly deep stretch of a rushing river blocked her way. The rocks on the bank were worn smooth by time and water and cold to the touch, large and heavy but just small enough to fit into the openings of her empty blade holders with metallic clanks that sounded as hollow as she felt. The dark water was cold, sloshing up over the rim of her leather boots to turn her feet to ice as she struggled to walk deeper into the creek against the weight of her rock-laden gear and the unstable ground. When her head finally went under, she didn't bother to hold her breath.

Three somewhat stiff knocks on her bedroom door, not caring that curfew was past and the occupant was likely asleep. "Mika, we need to talk." No answer. More knocking. "Mika, please." Still no answer. Still more knocking. No movement from inside. He wasn't about to allow her to drop the other shoe, not when he'd finally come slinking back chided and in total shame to apologize. Eren pushed open the door, but he found the room empty. The nightstand tipped over, the pain medication spilled across the floor. His sister, however, was no-where to be found. _Maybe she's at my door, trying to talk to me. With how much time I was in the Commander's office, who knows how long she's been there._ Leaving her bedroom behind he made his way across to the other side of the barracks floor expected to find her there. What he found instead made his stomach drop through the floor; no Mikasa anywhere, but laying on the floor tossed carelessly aside was her red scarf. This was bad; somehow he knew that she had left the barracks and was somewhere in the woods with self-destruction in mind. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. He was down the stairs and out of the door so fast it were as if his feet had wings. He cast around at the cold forest, at the dark churning trees, in desperation. "_**Mikasa!**__" _But all that he heard was the wind blowing his words away. Eren took off running, hoping that through some sort of miracle she had taken the only route down that didn't end in a sheer cliff, pounding through the trees with his breath tearing from his lungs and his feet stumbling and tripping on the loose and which often sent him tumbling a ways head over heels. Finally he wound up on the banks of a river a good ways away from the barracks, pacing panicking and calling out to her with only silence as his reply. There was just enough moonlight through the choking blanket of clouds that veiled the sky for him to see, revealing the familiar footprints in the mud leading down to the water's edge. He thought nothing for himself, nothing for the cold or the shivering that had already overtaken him, or of the swiftly rushing water; he dove in with no hesitation, the shock of the sudden change in temperature forcing the breath from his lungs like a blow to the chest in a cloud of white bubbles. He resurfaced, gasping, limbs becoming stiff with the cold as he fought to current before diving back down again into the river and forcing his eyes open. A single shaft of frail moonlight pierced into the murky water around him to illuminate the large rocks that rimmed in the shore and her ghostly form floating just off the bottom of the ten foot pool. He swam down towards the bottom, hand over fist, to reach her; her limbs were limp and floating hauntingly beside her, her short black hair drifting with the current as a halo about her face. His arms wound around her waist and he heaved with all his might, pushing off of the bottom and flailing towards the surface, but the combined weight of their bodies and her gear-filled, he now realized, with rocks-dragged them together back into the depths. Again he was forced to release her and resurface for air lest he find himself in need of rescue as well; returning to the bottom of the pool he fumbled with numbed fingers in an effort to undo the belt that had adhered the death trap to her body, mentally cursing the complicated and intricate series of straps and ties which kept it in place and finally tearing through them with claws and teeth in frustration. They broke the surface at last but through his desperation to somehow get them both to shore Eren was all too well aware of the stark reality that she didn't take a breath. He had no way of knowing how long it may have been that she'd been down there, but all that he could do was hope that he'd arrived in time to save her. Dragging their combined weight clear of the river's merciless grasp and up onto the shore, soaked through dripping and chilled to the bone, he wasted no time in beginning fevered measures to somehow save the life of his sister and the only woman he had ever loved. "Come on, Mika!" Her clothing and hair were waterlogged, her eyes closed, her lips slightly parted and turning blue against skin hued a horrible purplish-grey. He lowered his ear to her chest but was met with only silence. "What did I tell you back then? About fighting? Don't you dare give up, do you hear me; I'm here!" He placed crossed hands against the center of her chest and pushed, desperate to clear her lungs and beat her heart for her; he wouldn't fail her again, wouldn't allow her to slip away from him, slip through his fingers and fall through the cracks. The water that spilled from her mouth appeared almost black in the darkness of the all but moonless night; Eren all but lunged forwards pressing his lips harshly against hers and forcing a breath of air into her body. "Don't go Mikasa, please! Don't leave me all alone again!" He was breathing for her, beating her heart for her, and he would keep doing it for as long as it might make a difference even if the effort killed him. With the lack of moonlight on that night he couldn't be sure, but he thought that he skin might have restored itself to a somewhat healthier color; as he rested his ear against her chest for a second time he caught the sound of a faint fluttering; she wasn't breathing on her own, but her heart had begun to beat again. He'd wasted more than enough time consumed by desperation; that little tiny part of him that hadn't been swept away to drown in the North Panic sea noted the fact that the blood-chilling cold would quickly prove fatal to both of them. Scooping her up into his arms in the same manner that he had so many times before he forced his frozen joints to move and ran, gritting his teeth against the pain as he opened his still wounded wings and threw himself into the sky, flagging almost immediately but somehow managing to stay in the air by sheer force of will; hitting the ground hard and almost tripping for a moment before racing inside and up the stairs, passing by the infirmary doors in favor of barging into the lab where he knew that she would be. All but kicking down the door he ran inside, startling Hanji and nearly trampling Mike when he didn't get out of the way of his charge quite fast enough. _"Help her!"_


	16. Hypothermia

Chapter 16 – Hypothermia

"I really can't believe that they actually went through with it," Ymir grumbled as the little group sat huddled together around their table at dinner over luke-warm stringy meat and grey colored bread. "First we learn that one of our former allied Regiments was transformed into a Legion of blood thirsty aberrant Chimera by their own leader and some psychotic doctor gone rogue; then Mikasa goes missing to later show up arrested as a traitor and it turns out that she was said psychotic doctor's adopted daughter and that she and Arlert are both escapees from Shiganshina; then he locks Bodt in the closet to orchestrate a jail break and springs both her and her Chimera brother and she commits a massacre at the lab; then the lab comes out with some madcap 'if you can't beat them join them' plan using the Yeager boy's serum-laced blood to create pseudo-chimera soldiers, and of course those three were the first to volunteer."

"And the only, I'll assure you of that much." Jean groused. "I think Reiner did it because he really believes what he gains from it will help us, and Berthold does whatever Reiner does so it's no surprise there. But Annie did it solely to satisfy her obsession with Mikasa; with surpassing her and stomping her into the dirt. She worked constantly to achieve that goal in the academy but always came out second best in the face of Mikasa's sheer aptitude. I went to see them the other day-they're keeping them locked up for now for the safety of everyone involved until they're completely sure that nothing bad will come of their little experiment-and where the other two are pretty much the same as they were the people at the labs used so much of the blood on her by her own request that she's everything but full blood Chimera. Not that it matters to her since she's finally been given the title that she wanted."

"You talk like she's the only one with an obsession," Connie snickered. "We all know that you're hell bent on her brother."

"Well, someone has to make that Chimera bastard pay for what he did! For kidnapping her! Corrupting her! She was loyal to the walls before he got his claws on her despite her past!" Jean hissed. "I don't care if I have to go against the direct orders of the King himself to do it; the only one of us with the rights to the honor of putting Eren Yeager down is me!"

The only way that he could describe how he felt in that moment was trapped in a nightmare. It was somewhere around 2 in the morning, about four hours since he had barged into Hanji's lab, and now he sat-still soaked through and shivering uncontrollably-beside one of the many coats in the infirmary. A large fire blazed in the stone hearth, heating the enormous room to an only marginal degree. A towel and blanket had been draped around his shoulders and a cup of tea-once steaming but left untouched to grow tepid and cold-was clenched tightly in his hands. His bangs were pasted to his forehead, still damp but no longer dripping as he watched over her with words like 'comatose' and 'hypothermia' ringing in his ears. She lay in the bed, small and frail amidst the blinding white sheets, her black hair spread about her head on the pillow and a breathing mask secured over her mouth and nose. Her skin was cold to the touch and still tinged blue, but unlike him her soaked clothing had been exchanged for dry ones; her thin hands had been rebound in fresh bandages, and though no movement was detectable to his eyes when he took her hand he could feel the faint fluttering of her pulse against her slender wrist. Hanji and the others had tried their hardest to have their conversation in hushed tones and out of earshot, but he'd still heard every word; possible memory loss to the point where she didn't remember her own name let alone his; potential widespread brain damage; the possibility that she would never regain consciousness and would remain in a coma forever. He focused, for the moment, on the fact that she would live knowing full well that otherwise he'd go mad. He became restless at the very thought of it, struggling to focus his mind on anything but that before the sudden surge of nervous energy could force his deadened body into yet another round of pacing. He focused on the resemblance of her hair to the color of ink as it splayed across the white fabric of the pillow case; on the way her long dark lashes cast delicate spindly shadows along her cheekbones; on her lips, pale pink and slightly chapped from training too much and hydrating too little over a span of many years that had somehow managed to still be soft. How lucky he had been to stumble across her so long ago in a way that had left them so intertwined; so almost destructively dependent on one another, on their presence and their love. He hadn't realized how precious what they had was back then as a young boy, calling the girl he'd one day come to love with an all-consuming fire his sister as he'd run beside her through the sheltered streets of his birth or held her in the late dark hours of the night as bad dreams and phantom voices plagued her. And though before he had claimed that that reality had been a revelation long held in reality it hadn't been; it wasn't until he'd held her cold and lifeless body in his arms, until he'd almost truly lost her, did he fully realize the gravity of what each beat of her heart, each breath that she took, meant to him. Of how much of a gift each moment spent with Mikasa Ackerman really was. Or how petty, how stupid, how heartless his actions of late had truly been. And whether she recovered from it or she didn't, he'd never quite be able to look his reflection in the eye.

"I'm an idiot," he mumbled, talking out loud just to hear a voice-any voice-and stop himself from going crazy. He hadn't been expecting an answer, so receiving one made him jump.

"Yes, you are, but that's something I think all three of us have been well aware of for quite some time now." Armin informed him quietly as he came in through the closed but unlocked doors. "Can I come in, Eren?"

He nodded tiredly, slumping slightly forwards in the hard wooden chair where she sat to prop his head up on his hands. "What are you doing awake Armin?"

"I'm an early riser and always have been; of the three of us you were the only one who ever slept in."

"2 am seems a little bit excessive."

"Only three hours difference; something told me that I needed to wake up."

"'Something' as in intuition something, or 'something' as in Hanji something?"

"Something," Armin repeated almost mischeviously in an attempt to provoke something of the more usual amused annoyance from his friend, but when he received nothing but a washed out gaze the blonde pulled up a chair to the opposite side of the bed.

"You were right," his voice was frangible, shoulders hunched inwards and head bowed low. "Just, please, don't say it."

"I wasn't going to," he assured him; the other could tell that the guilt of it all was already eating him alive. "Have they told you anything?"

Eren nodded. "They say that she'll live, but…I'm trying not to think about the potential damage." He shuddered, voice cracking.

"Have you talked to her at all?"

Now the other looked at him sharply as if he'd said something absurd. "Talk to her?" Armin nodded. "What good would that do while she's unconscious like this; she can't hear me."

"Actually, multiple medical studies have shown that she can. Mental stimulus has been shown to not only increase the likelihood of a comatose person waking up but it can also reduce the damage that may have been done overall."

"…But what should I say?"

"Anything. Everything. Just _talk_ Eren; sound will help, I promise you. To that regard, I brought you this," Armin produced the well cared for guitar from beside his chair, "knowing you'd be too worried to leave her side long enough to retrieve it yourself. This way if you want it, it's here."

"Thank you," he hadn't touched it since the Christmas party, hadn't been in any sort of mood to play or sing sure that nothing would come out but scorn, and now the light-weight polished wood felt almost strange in his hands. Eren couldn't think of anything now, but he had no doubt that soon enough it would come to be a relief that there was something to break the monotony of the hollow sound of the machine that was helping her to breathe.

"Have you slept at all tonight?"

"How can you even ask me that with all that is going on? I have to take care of Mikasa; I can't sleep!"

"I understand how you feel about this, but if you're really going to take care of her than you also have to take care of yourself."

He supposed that that was true. "It's hard."

"I know it is, but if you don't look after yourself as well then you may not be strong enough to help her if something bad does happen." He told him. "And if she wakes up and finds you a total mess you know that she'll make herself worse with the worry."

Eren sighed. "You know, sometimes it escapes me just how it is that you could possibly be so factual about everything all the time. Doesn't the constant logic eventually drive you insane?"

"Actually, by this point I think that absence of logic would be what drives me insane." Armin replied. "Get some rest; I'll watch her for a while."

"I'm fine, I'm not tired!"

"You're soaking wet, shivering and barely able to keep your eyes open Eren; the look of you says otherwise." Now the blonde's voice was uncharacteristically stern. "I'm not going to make you take a break so completely that you sleep in your room, but at the very least go change into something dry before you catch a cold."

"Give a mouse a cookie and he will ask for some milk; if I go and change clothes soon enough you'll find some way to make me sleep!"

"There are plenty of empty beds in here, you wouldn't have to leave." It was still with marked reluctance that he left the infirmary and made his way to his room. Eren grabbed the first things he found and threw them on, leaving the damp clothing on the ground without a second thought, and returned as swiftly as he could back to her bedside to relieve Armin of his temporary watch. His friend remained by his side for a few hours after that until Levi came in to order him off on cleaning duty, but he left Eren be. More time passed and the sun rose higher. He curled up beside her on the bed and slept for a few troubled hours but when he woke up nothing would have changed. Rather than pacing again Eren picked up the guitar and began picking directionlessly and indiscriminately at the strings. What was at first a disconnected and thoughtless chain of strung together notes and fragments began to make sense to him and soon without realizing it, it had transformed into a song.

**I think you can do much better than me**

**After all the lies that I made you believe.**

**Guilt sets in and I start to see**

**The edge of the bed where your nightgown used to be.**

_ Lying awake in his bed one night just a few days after she had first come to live with them, sleep once more eluding him as he stared up at his shadowed ceiling. It was odd for him, difficult for his ten year old mind to fully process just how weird that it truly was to no longer have his bed to himself or just why it was that it was weird, but it felt good in a way that was unfamiliar. It was a pleasant change not to be alone with the quiet darkness; nice to be able to feel the presence of someone else beside him. It kept the shadows of the room from looking quite so menacing as they once had to the overactive imagination of his childhood self. Turning onto his side Eren took in the sight of her sleeping form; she was whimpering slightly and shifting about in the beginnings of a troubled sleep, her long black hair falling into her face. Eren pulled her closer, enfolding her in his embrace, and felt her calm. Soon after, he fell asleep as well._

**I told myself I won't miss you**

**But I remember**

**What it feels like beside you.**

_ "Eren?" reluctantly he cracked open one eye to find his sister staring at him from her nearby desk at the school house. "You need to stay awake and finish, otherwise you'll be stuck inside doing homeworkand we both know that won't end well."_

_ "Yeah, yeah." He grumbled, putting his head back down. "I'll finish it before the bell rings, "mom"." He hated how she would always nag at him about every little tiny thing and knew full well that that would be one thing he wouldn't miss should they ever be parted. But at the same time the annoyance was undermined by a warm and almost fuzzy feeling. Having another person constantly be so incredibly concerned for him was rather touching. It meant that she cared._

**I really miss your hair in my face**

**And the way your innocence tastes**

**And I think you should know this:**

**You deserve much better than me.**

In that moment his voice cracked and then deserted him completely, his control shattering at long last as the exhaustion and stress finally set in. The tears came. The guitar fell with a twang and a crash but he didn't care; a possession like that was menial at best in that frame of time, compared to all that he still stood to lose. When would she wake up? Would she wake up? Would she remember him? What would he do if she didn't, if their entire lives together had been erased from her mind; if she looked at him as if he were some stranger? So he talked, pouring out all of his memories of their childhood together and all his personal regrets and grievances in a desperate bid to remind her; to preserve what memories she still might have. Time passed; he had no idea how much, but his mind registered the movement of the sun across the sky as something that was all but meaningless. Then, finally, finding himself once more folded over the little cot he felt it; the tiniest twitch of her hand. Eren sat up in the chair beside the bed immediately, fully aware despite his exhaustion and witnessed at long last the miracle he'd been praying for. Slowly, Mikasa's eyes slid open and she blinked up at him in confusion for a moment before reaching for the mask over her face to displace it enough to speak.

"Eren?"

He almost fainted right there from relief. "Thank God, you remember!"

"What happened?" She still seemed groggy; more than a little bit out of it. "Why am I in the infirmary?"

"You mean…you don't remember?"

She processed his words for a moment, mind moving rather slowly, and finally answered. "The pills. Something about a river; did I fall in?"

"No, you didn't fall in…the pills made you depressed, and the others warned me but I wouldn't listen; you tried to take your own life to drown yourself in the river. You've been in a coma for days; I don't know exactly how long." Taking one of her hands, Eren set it against his cheek and held it there. "Don't ever do that to me again, Mika. I was unfair and I swear on my life and on everything that matters to me that I'll never do anything like that to you again for as long as I live; I don't know what I would do if I ever lost you, especially if it was my fault."

"I think it would be better for both of us to just forget the past few weeks. I think it's safe to say we've both done something stupid."

"Yeah," he replied quietly. "I guess we have. I'll certainly be addressing important issues through, as Armin refers to them, 'healthy' avenues from now on."

"And I'll be more cautious about what I agree to take; pain aside, I'm definitely getting rid of those pills that Hanji gave me." Her hand slid further up along his cheek, the tips of her fingers lightly tracing the purple circles beneath his eyes. "Have you slept at all?"

"Once or twice; not often and not long." He admitted after a moment. "I was too worried; whenever I did sleep I had nightmares that woke me up."

"Are you alright?" why was it that she was always to concern with his well-being rather than her own? "You're still in the process of healing yourself. Your wings-."

"Don't worry about me, you're the one who's really in a bad way at the moment."

"I'll be fine."

"We both will. That said, concern yourself with your own recovery for now." To this she said nothing, her hand leaving his face in favor of finding his own. For a long time there was a quiet between the pair as both firmly assured themselves of the reality that the other was truly there to stay. No words were spoken, but the silent communication of quiet glances and small touches was all that either needed. Surprisingly, it was his normally patient companion who was the first to break the silence.

"You should really get some sleep Eren. You look like you need it."

He shook his head, the stubborn set of his jaw returning to harden his features somewhat while at the same time an element of pleading desperation remained in his oceanic eyes. "I don't want to leave you yet."

"You don't have to, especially considering that there's this conveniently placed bed which could reasonably be expected to hold two people." As she shifted slightly over to one side to make room for him beside her he knew for a fact that she was definitely back to normal; through some miracle no damage had been done, and with no oath present to separate them they could now stand united under one banner just as they had so many years ago when the innocence of childhood reigned and the closest thing the little clan of three had faced to a war was the daily battle against the bullies in the school yard. The hospital cot was very small and so attempting to fit the both of them on it was a rather precarious balancing act but once they had finally managed the pair snuggled closer together beneath the thin coarse blanket and, just as they had when they were children, fell asleep in the sheltering warmth of each other's arms.


	17. Mission

**The Lemon Chapter (this one was both fun and difficult to write so hopefully it turned out well)**

The three of them still looked as they always had, but being in the same room with their now afflicted comrades was a harrowing experience, to say the least, for his nerves. Annie leaned against the room's far wall, looking bored and cynical as ever; Berthold appeared to be his usual shy and somewhat nervous self and then there was Reiner who loomed none-too-happy by what he had deemed to be their 'little bitch' behavior; namely the fact that dead silence had fallen over the room and all eyes had turned on them as a weary energy filled the room. Even Sasha had stopped her near constant eating, and that alone spoke volumes to the discomfort felt by the once tight knit group at large.

"We may be a whole hell of a lot stronger than the lot of you now and we may not be entirely human anymore, but for God's sake we're not contagious _and_ they have us wearing collars!" Reiner grumbled, golden eyes flashing. "Suck it up and grow a pair, the whole lot of you!"

"S-Sorry," from his seat beside him Jean noticed that Marco was trembling violently as he spoke. "It's just a little weird; the prospect of it, I mean. You're not human but you're not Chimera either and, well, to be honest with you none of us know quite what to think."

This revelation seemed to annoy the burly blonde even more, but as he opened his mouth to say something else Annie cut him off. "Your reluctance is completely understandable; we'll be undertaking this latest mission alone so your reactions on the matter, for the moment, affect nothing."

"Mission? You mean you're going out into the Lost Territories alone?"

"We're immune to the virus and have almost all of the Chimera's abilities; there's no real reason to unduly include the aid of normal soldiers such as yourselves. You'd only get in the way."

That assumption really pissed him off, but he gritted his teeth and contained his indignance. Ymir, however, was not content to take the other woman's comment lying down. "Normal soldiers? We're the elite a_nd_ your team, in case you've forgotten Leonhart!"

"What she meant to say," Berthold cut in before the situation could spiral any further, "is that since we're now…what we are we're better equipped to handle the rigors of a mission like the one we've been assigned with minimal losses if any. We're being sent in to locate the Scouting Legion's base and to take out the Yeager children and their crazed Commander's Lieutenant Levi Ackerman, there by clearing the way for a larger force to swoop in later and finish Erwin. A mission like that will take weeks, even months, to complete and that entire time would be spent in the Lost Territories. Now do you see what we mean?" the brunet didn't look happy about being left out and grumbled quite loudly but sat back down.

"We're wasting time; we need to set out." Pushing away from the wall with her foot, Annie headed towards the door of the room without a word and the other two fell into step behind her.

"I'm assuming that you're going to want to face Mikasa alone, won't you." Reiner said as they made their way into the stables. He received a rather cold glance in reply.

"I don't care if I face her one on one or if all three of us bring her down together, though I doubt such measures will be necessary." She informed him curtly. "Either way, the killing blow belongs to me; only then will it be undeniable to everyone that I have finally bested her."

"Well it'll definitely take our combined effort and a brutal battle to bring down the Lance Corporal; I read some of the old reports on him, and I kid you not when I say that he would eat entire hordes of Chimera for breakfast then take his morning tea. So while you're off dealing with her Berthold and I will take care of the brother-."

"Eren Yeager is mine!" The trio jumped slightly in surprise, turning to find him standing in the doorway of the stables with his amber eyes blazing. "I'm coming with you."

Recovery was slow for the both of them, but eventually things had returned to something that was at least semi-normal. Mikasa was allowed out of the infirmary and Eren was getting close to completing a course of 'physical therapy' to restore full range of motion to his wings. They spent their days together either helping with various chores around the barracks or playing rather childish games like tag in the nearby forest or giving one word prompts to Eren from which he would assemble a majority of hysterical songs and in this way they kept themselves entertained for hours. At night they ate together, inventing tall tales over dinner or acting out roles of characters from the books in the library. It were almost as if everything was over, almost as if they had their happily ever after in hand. Almost. Because through the warm veil of security and friendship they had no illusion of the fact that the war was still raging. That Erwin and the others were still planning in a desperate effort to concoct a counter measure to the King's madness. That the walls around Stohess were only rising higher. But all that they could do was wait. It had become their habit to remain together even after curfew; Armin would depart for his room and Eren would talk as if he had thoughts of doing the same and would make a handful of false starts towards the door but always ended up spending the night in bed with her either in her room or his own but neither of them had yet lost any sleep over it. The candles were burned out and the curtains were drawn over the window but a shaft of moonlight filtered in through the cracks providing the pair with just enough light to see. In the muted illumination his tan skin looked almost silver and his hair an even darker brown. His green eyes collected the light to glow bright green like an animal's. The feathers on his wings rustled slightly as he shifted position, propping himself up on one arm to look down at her.

"What are you thinking?" it was only after the question was out that she realized her thoughts-the fact that she was thinking at all-must have somehow shown on her face. "You look like you are thinking really hard about something. Like you have something that you want to say; have I done something wrong?"

"No, of course not!" It wasn't anything that he had done. It had more to do with what he hadn't done. Of course she knew why he had made no move to deepen their relationship; she'd seen the look of horrified realization on his face when he'd seen her in that cell and put together in his mind what must have happened to her.

"Nothing is wrong," she replied, placing a hand gently on his chest. "It's just…we've known each other since we were 9 years old and-though we didn't realize it until recently-one could make a case that we have been in a relationship for a very long time. You don't need to act like I'm made out of glass."

"I think you know why I think it's a good idea for us to take things as slow as we have been, Mika." He said quietly in return. "I've heard stories about have flashbacks can be triggered and I don't want to risk hurting you any more than I already have."

"I know your reasoning-it's understandable and I appreciate your concern-but if something like that can come between us than what sort of relationship are we in?" He didn't reply, so she continued. "I've always felt safe with you; you saved my life, quieted my nightmares and taught me to fight. If I were to dwell on something as horrible as what happened behind the walls while I'm with you, then I don't deserve you."

He sighed, repositioning himself again and scooting closer to gently press his forehead against her own. "Are you sure about this? Completely sure?"

"You already know the answer to that."

"Alright, but only if you promise me one thing first."

"That depends on what it is."

He grinned at the cheeky response. "If you start to have a flash back or start feeling uncomfortable or anything like that, stop me immediately." She rolled her eyes but told him that she would, knowing full well that he could be even more stubborn than she was but Mikasa knew she wouldn't have to stop him. Twice before in her life she'd had a mom above her with nothing but lust in his eyes; this was the first time that the actions to follow would be welcome, the first time that the face was familiar; the unforgettable green eyes were smoldering intensely, filled with nothing but the purest love for her as he leaned down slightly and gently and touched his lips to hers. At first it was the same chaste kiss they'd shared beneath the mistletoe on her first night there, but it soon progressed to something more as he angled his head to leave little room between their mouths as he carefully took her lower lip between his own and gently ran his tongue along it in an unspoken request for entry. Reaching up to twine her fingers in the silky strands of his dark hair to pull him closer still, she let him in with a quiet pleasured moan and he explored gleefully for a moment before inciting her to join him in a battle for dominance which he ultimately won. They broke apart for air, a thin strand of silver connecting them together; her lips were bruised and swollen, his eyes were unfocused and hazed and both were panting. He broke their stare after a few moments, his mouth finding its way to her neck where he gently tugged away the scarf to kiss and nip-being very careful not to break the skin with his sharp teeth-leaving behind a liberal spattering of bruises along her neck and collarbone. As he began to undo the first few buttons on her white oxford shirt and began to ravage that new territory her hands wandered to his shoulders, gliding along his strong arms and then down his toned chest feeling the taut muscles shiver beneath her touch. His skin was warm and smooth and hairless, the muscles in his back well developed by years of using his wings, the feathers of which were soft as she ran her fingers through them. His calloused hands, strong but gentle, pressed her soft curves against his chiseled form as he reached behind her to undo the clasp on her bra and pull it away. Embarrassment immediately flooded through her and she tried to cover herself, but he gently grabbed her wrists and stopped her. "Don't." Eren's voice was husky, his eyes brimming with adoration as he took in the scars from the life of a soldier and the blue-black bruises her straps had etched across her skin. "You're beautiful." God how she loved him. Without even thinking about it, he could dispel any of her fears with only a few words all without realizing that he was even doing it. His hands traced along her sides and came up to her chest, gently kneading them before taking one of her breasts into his mouth. A louder moan this time, her back arching like a cat's as her nails cut healing furrows along his spine. Her shaking hands fumbled with button on her pants, hurriedly kicking them off before reaching for his; long powerful legs and the arching V of his hips were revealed and both were left with nothing but a single thin veil of clothing between them. "Are you sure that you want to do this?"

"Yes," normally his repeated questioning would have annoyed her, but not with this. He wanted to entirely sure that he wouldn't be something she would end up regretting later; that was just how he was. "I'm sure." He'd been absent from the conversation with Moblit in the labs and so she knew even more than he did the full gravity of exactly what going through with this would mean for her. "No matter how many times you ask me that, you're going to get the same answer."

"Just in case I didn't." But she could tell from the haze of desire on his face that he wouldn't have been able to stop even if she'd asked him to.

"Eren," his concern was genuine and touching but his continued doubting was beginning to make her nerves grow short. Though stubbornness was an Eren Yeager trademark he was relatively pliant to her will and it was a rather simple affair to maneuver him onto his back with only a light pressure against his chest. "Do I really need to convince you of just how sure about this that I am?"

At first he seemed confused and relatively unwilling to relinquish dominance to her, then her intentions seemed to dawn on him and the corners of his lips quirked upwards slightly.

"Show me?" the tone of his voice was almost lascivious. "Just how would you go about doing that?"

"Do you really want me to give you a demonstration on how I would do that?"

"Maybe."

Ever difficult, but what had she expected. "Well, I think I'd start with this." Her fingers tugged gently at the elastic waistband of his boxers, snapping them against his skin before continuing down to gently palm at his erection. Eren hissed sharply his breathing becoming erratic as his riled gaze met with her calm one, chest heaving. "But these have to go; they're in the way." Her prior embarrassment long forgotten, Mikasa pulled his boxers off of him before he could even realize what was going on and tossed them across the room. And for the first time in her life she saw all of him, unveiled to her in all his glory; there were the bestial parts of him-the wings folded carefully beneath him, the horns that were beginning to spiral up and outwards back into the majestic spirals of white bone that they had been when first they'd reunited, his long tail hanging off the side of the bed, curling slightly at the tip-and then there were the parts of him that were so familiar to her that the sight of them evoked a feeling that was nearly sentimental-his eyes cast in a hue that she had never seen before or since, his caramel colored skin and the ever unruly dark chocolate hair- but all together, to her, they culminated into a special sort of perfection that was unique to him and there wasn't a single thing about it that she would change. Both stood frozen there, staring at each other as if unsure of what the other would do, or for that matter what they should be doing. Then Mikasa broke the spell of the moment and reached for him, wrapping her long thin fingers around his heated flesh. Eren's body jerked upwards, his back curving fluidly as a small keen slipped passed his lips his face turning pink from a mixture of pleasure and embarrassment. "M-Mikasa!" She's never heard the way his voice sounded in that moment before and decided quite quickly that it was definitely something that she liked. Leaning down over him and feeling his squirm beneath her as her breath ghosted across it she gently and experimentally took him into her mouth. "Oh God!" Eren howled before shoving his fist in his mouth to stop himself from being heard. Though muffled, the pleasured sounds drove her onwards through her inexperience and with how worked up he was it didn't take long for him to come undone beneath her. Eren was shaking from his release and his movements were jerky and somewhat boneless but he still managed to reorient them back to their original position and reclaim control. "Jetzt bin ich dran," there was no more hesitation as he pulled away her last scrap of clothing to leave then both entirely exposed and carefully guided himself inside, slowly sheathing himself to the hilt and doing his best not to hurt her any more than he had to. Mikasa screwed her eyes shut against the pain, feeling tears prick her eyes as she bit back a soft sound of pain because she knew that if he heard it Eren would immediately stop. As it was he made no further move, holding himself carefully above her and taking in her pinched expression with noticeable guilt.

"Move, Eren." She hadn't adjusted to having his considerable size inside her, but she was willing to endure any pain to banish the state of limbo that had fallen over them. He did as he was told, rolling his hips in an experimental thrust and soon finding a steady rhythm. The pain slowly ebbed away in increments as the pleasure swelled until she was drowning in it; soon Mikasa was the one forced to silence her cries to avoid disturbing the entire Legion; Eren snarled ferally as she dug her teeth into his shoulder to do so, nipping rather harshly at the already bruised flesh of her neck in return before returning his lips to hers to resume his formerly forgone exploration. Blood and sweat dripped from their forms, soaking the sheets and sticking their bodies together as their hearts thudded against each other and the sounds of slapping flesh and stifled moans filled the air until all at once white blinded her vision and his warmth filled her; they rode out the pleasure of their high together before collapsing into the warm, gilded after glow in a tangle of limbs and panting.

"You've no idea how much I love you."

At this she couldn't help a quiet snicker. "After all of that, I think I do." To that Eren chuckled, his arm snaking around her waist to pull her against him. "We'll always be together, won't we Eren?"

"Always," he promised as she snuggled closer against his chest. "Always."


End file.
